While You Were Sleeping
by AgiVega
Summary: Alternate sequel to Her Captain. This time it is Emily who receives orders to produce an heir, however Laurence, whom she chooses for the role of the father, proves to be a hard nut to crack. And as we know, desperate times call for desperate measures...
1. Through With Women

**A/N: **remember me? This is AgiVega, the die-hard Laurence/Emily shipper, with a new story I promised at the end of 'Consequences of Waterloo'. This story is an alternate sequel to my one-shot, 'Her Captain'. In order to read this, pretend that you have never read 'Consequences of Waterloo', because this fic has absolutely nothing to do with it (even if some of my OC's from CoW reappear here). While CoW was a light-hearted, humour-based story, this is going to be darker, more dramatic, sometimes downright angsty. But never fear, humour will occur here and there, for it wouldn't be an AgiVega fic if it didn't have some humour. :)

**Disclaimer:** the Temeraire universe belongs to Naomi Novik; the story's title I borrowed from that lovely comedy with Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman.

**Warning:** while CoW was a 'very light T', almost 'strong K+' rated fic, this one truly deserves T rating. I am sure it does not even come close to M rating, but it is a strong, firm T, involving hints at non-consensual sex and self-gratification. You have been warned.

**Huge thanks to my wonderful beta Michael** who not only corrected my grammar but also helped immensely with all respects of Anglicanism!

**Chapter 1**

**Through with Women**

_Covert near Sydney, 5__th__ November, 1815_

It was not often that Lieutenant Emily Roland got drunk or even tipsy, but tonight, after they had received the news of the fabulous victory at Waterloo, she could not help drinking a bit more than usual. She caught herself giggling uncontrollably all evening, earning a few weird glances from the officers around her, but she decided not to care. For one single night she did not want to care for anyone or anything, especially for a certain someone and the heaps of misery he had piled upon her unawares. She deserved to be happy for once, even only for one evening, and even if that 'happiness' only came from the deep red port in her glass! However, as her glance met that of her captain, laughter froze on her lips and she hastily put down her glass of wine, feeling her cheeks burn.

She was mad at him. No, she was not merely mad, she was practically seething. How dare he ruin her evening with that unbearably stern and disapproving look of his? How dare he rob her of the small joys she was currently feeling when he had already robbed her of every other joy imaginable? He had no right, he had no bloody right to give her silent orders even across the dinner table when duty for the day was over! He had no right to remind her that she was supposed to be feeling gloomy because of _him_!

_Because of him…_

For Emily Roland had been miserable for many, many years. Years spent with futile yearning, nights of dreaming and days of daydreaming of a man who simply would not notice her for a woman… No matter what he had told her on their way to New South Wales aboard the _Allegiance_, she knew well he had only called her a 'young woman' out of chivalry, but he had not really meant it. For him, she was still the same child cadet who had once unknowingly deceived him into thinking her a boy. She might have developed into a woman with a recognisably feminine figure, he still would not see it, for he chose to be deaf and blind to all feminineness since…

Examining the dark red liquid in her glass, stifling a hiccough, Emily's mind raced back to the day when, about a year after having arrived at Australia, they had met the bane of both her and her captain's life: Brianna Johnson.

She remembered it as clearly as though it had been just yesterday, not seven whole years ago: Lieutenant Johnson of the crew of the Yellow Reaper Emeritus, had arrived from a smaller covert to the south in order to serve in the Sydney area. The first dinner that Emeritus' crew had spent in the Sydney covert dining room would surely be long remembered by Temeraire's crew, or at least by those who happened to be sitting near Laurence and his sarcastic friend Tharkay.

That evening Emily had been deeply engrossed in devouring some pork chops, not paying much attention to anything else, even managing to push the thought that she was sitting right next to her captain to the back of her mind, until her captain had spoken to Tharkay in hushed tones, "That woman over there… she is looking at me rather oddly."

"Oh, surely because you are famous," Tharkay had replied in a slightly mocking tone, "she, like everyone else here must have heard about your little… disagreement with the British authorities."

Emily had then chanced a sideways glance at Laurence to see him frowning – frowning, but casting surreptitious glances towards the female lieutenant. "I expect you must be right," he had finally replied to Tharkay.

"Oh, indeed?" the half-British half-Nepalese man had chuckled on Laurence's left. "I thought you noticed I was just pulling your leg…"

"What do you mean by that?" Laurence had asked innocently.

"She has just arrived, she very likely cannot have heard about you yet."

"Then why is she looking at me so… as though she had a problem with me?"

"Well, I think the only problem she might be having with you is that you have not yet visited her in her room, which you could easily remedy tonight after dinner," Tharkay had said, making Laurence blush to the roots of his blond hair. And that was when Emily had decided she truly disliked Mr. Tharkay. But not nearly as much as she had, in a single second, grown to dislike Brianna Johnson.

As it had soon turned out, Brianna was the daughter of an indigenous Australian woman and a British sailor arriving in New South Wales with Arthur Phillip's First Fleet. As a half-blood, she was dark and exotic, and most importantly, seven years older than Emily herself. Brianna was a woman Laurence had regarded as a 'woman' from the first moment on, which had irked Emily no end. Yes, at first it had only irked her, made her feel an all-burning desire to kick something – preferably Brianna herself –, but as time had passed, her childish jealousy turned into deeper desperation: an ache that threatened to consume her from inside whenever she laid eyes upon the two of them walking side by side; and an urge to cry and howl whenever she saw them retreating together to his room.

The worst had been that she had seen from the beginning what Laurence had not: Brianna did not love him. At least, not nearly as much as she, Emily, did. With her exotic beauty, Brianna had easily ensnared the poor devil, using his emotional vulnerability after the 'treason' and all that it had entailed, and he, in desperate hope of getting some warmth from someone other than just his dragon, had let himself be seduced. At the tender age of twenty-one, Brianna had proved to be the most talented temptress Emily had ever seen, her unabashed behaviour would have put Jane Roland to shame, and while Emily had somehow managed to not feel overly jealous of her captain's affections for her mother, she could not bring herself to not be jealous of the affections Laurence had started bestowing upon Brianna 'The Tramp' Johnson.

Once, only once had Emily tried to talk sense into him, and in retrospect she no longer knew how she had even screwed up her courage to go to him and blurt out, "Sir, that woman does not love you, she is just playing with you, I hope you are aware of that", and she no longer knew how she had not dissolved into tears upon hearing his reply, "I am deeply moved by your concern, Mr. Roland, but I believe my private life is no business of yours."

That was the only time since Napoleon's invasion of England that Laurence had addressed her as 'Roland' instead of 'Emily'. She had been aware he had not meant to hurt her, but he had, nevertheless. She did not remember him ever hurting her as much as he had with this line – at least, not before she had so boldly told him her views on Brianna's emotions. And when she thought back, she wondered, had he not been right to feel spiteful? Naturally, his judgement of Brianna's character had been completely wrong, but still he had been a consenting adult, who with every right could regard being reprimanded by a fourteen-year-old girl as unacceptable.

The only time he had hurt her more than this had happened about half a year later. That day she recalled just as vividly as the day they had met Lieutenant Johnson. Temeraire and his crew had been sent off for two weeks to clear land deeper in the continent, and when they had returned to the covert, Laurence had been faced with the news that Miss Johnson had fallen seriously ill. No one he had asked could tell him the details, people just gossiped and gossiped, some thinking Brianna had had a bad case of the flu, some insisting that she had had appendicitis, others firm in the belief that she had received an injury and out of sheer dumb pride had tried to conceal it until it had nearly killed her.

But none of them had even come close to the truth, and they could not have, as the doctor had not allowed anyone to enter the woman's room. Judging by the determined expression on Laurence's face, however, Emily had been sure that the doctor would let _him_ inside. And indeed, if Laurence really wanted to accomplish something, there was no force on earth to hold him back – he had proved that when he and Temeraire had stolen the mushrooms to cure the French dragons. Emily's wistful eyes had followed him until he had entered his lover's room, a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. What she would have given, sacrificed even, to have him want to see _her_ so badly!

His visit to Johnson's room had been surprisingly short, and his face upon leaving the room shockingly pale, as though it had not been his paramour but himself suffering from a deadly illness.

"Sir…?" Emily had attempted to address him, but he had walked past her without even noticing her. She had, however, noticed the tears brimming his eyes.

As she had watched him walk eastwards, towards the sea-side, she had seen some unusual weariness in his step, as though his legs had been close to folding beneath him, but he had held himself upright.

A lump rising in her throat, she had decided to follow him, slowly and silently.

On a cliff overlooking the ocean, his legs had finally given up, and so had all his pride and dignity, and he had dropped to his knees, his body convulsing with sobs.

Emily had stood a few steps behind him, not knowing what to do. He had not even noticed her presence, for had he done so, he surely would have pulled himself together. She had never seen him suffer so before and could only wonder what had rendered him so broken. Had Brianna perhaps died during his short visit to her room, or mere minutes before it? Yes, surely that had to be it… she could not fathom any other reason that could have driven her captain into so deep an emotional precipice.

She had not been sure whether she ought to let him know of her presence, but at the same time she had felt a need to hold him, to console him, and that she could not have done without letting him know she was there.

"Sir…?" she had said once again to earn no reply. Probably he had not even heard her.

She had stepped to him, gently putting her hand on his shoulder and giving it a tender squeeze. This finally had made him look up, and her heart had sunk even deeper into her stomach upon seeing his face. His skin had been red both with tears and with nasty fingernail-shaped marks, leaving her no doubt he had clawed at himself, but the worst had been his eyes. They had been hollow. All the pain there must have been in them had spilled away in the form of tears, leaving nothing in them – no emotion at all. At that moment Emily had felt truly frightened.

"Sir… I am… so sorry. Please, accept my deepest condolences… Miss Johnson's death must surely have…"

"What… what are you talking about…?" he had croaked, pulling himself up from his kneeling position and taking a place on a flat-topped rock instead, his face deliberately turned away from her, staring at the vastness of the Pacific.

"I thought… but has she not…?"

"…died?" he had suddenly laughed out, his laughter icy and sarcastic. "No, she is doing well in the circumstances. Yes, she has nearly died, but she is over it and she will live."

"Then… it is great news, is it not, sir?" Emily had replied, sinking down on the rock next to him. Her voice had been wavering, her mind chiding herself for she had almost been happy about the thought of Brianna dead. Then again, she had reminded herself, Brianna's death would have meant horrible pain for her captain, and she would rather have seen him in Brianna's arms than suffering like this. But… if Brianna had not died, then…?

"Great news?" he had echoed her words, shaking his head. "Probably. I wonder why I cannot feel a bit of happiness about it…"

"But sir… I fear I do not understand… what has happened to her then?"

He had suddenly turned towards her, his eyes narrowed to slits. "No one even guessed, did they? Surely because Brianna beseeched the doctor to keep silent… and the doctor only let _me_ enter because _I _would have been the father."

"The… _what_…?" she had choked, even forgetting to add 'sir'.

"Oh, that was Brianna's little secret," he had replied with an expression of disgust. "She must have known it before we left, she must have… but she never cared to tell me, never cared to ask for my opinion… she thought she had the right to play God and take the life of… oh, Emily…" Suddenly his disgusted voice had broken into sobs again and his hollow eyes again filled with emotions – sadness beyond anything she had ever seen. "I have seen people being murdered… thousands of them," he had carried on, his voice coming in shaky gasps, "but I have never… never seen anything as horrible as when people murdered innocent children! And she did just that…"

"Oh, sir…" Emily's voice too had broken and tears had sprung to her eyes. She had automatically reached out and squeezed his arm. "But… how…?"

He had swallowed and again turned his face away from her, examining the ocean. "She has learnt some… wicked practice from her mother… According to the doctor, she must have consumed the fruit of a local plant that is poisonous, especially for an unborn child. She has taken the risk of killing herself in the process just to make sure she would not have my child…" He had shaken his head. "All she had had to do was tell me… if she had not wanted it, I would have gladly… gladly raised it alone. I would have hired a nurse and even changed nappies myself if need be… it might sound completely mad, but I would have done it, Emily."

"I know you would have, sir."

"But it does not matter anymore…" he had said, his voice barely a whisper. "The child is dead. And she lives. And I never want to see her again."

Emily had not known what to say, so just tightened her grip on his arm, which only resulted in him shrugging her hand off.

"One could say I am just having damn bad luck with women… but I am beginning to think it is more than bad luck," he had carried on, his eyes and voice distant, as though he had not even been addressing her, but simply thinking aloud. "The first I loved left me when I became an aviator… your mother left me after I became a traitor… and Brianna left me through rejecting my child. Apparently I am a magnet for cold and treacherous women…" He had let out another cold laugh, and, signalling the finality of their discussion, stood up. "Sometimes I think I must be cursed… but I am not giving the curse another chance to affect me. I am through with women. For ever."

This sentence had hurt Emily more than anything he had ever said before, for with this line he had robbed her of the chance to make him happy and be happy with him – and why? Because other women had caused him pain! He had lumped her in with others, and he had no right to that! She was her own person, very different from the murderous tramp Brianna, his mysterious first love or even her own mother! How dare he close all doors to his, her, _their_ happiness just because others had failed him? It was not fair…

Then again, when had life ever been fair? To him, to her, to… anyone?

For years and years she had hoped he would forget about his vow to avoid women, but soon enough it had become obvious that he had not. Brianna had shortly after her recuperation left Sydney, to Laurence's great relief, and after that, he had withdrawn into some invisible cocoon, letting only his closes friends – Temeraire and Tharkay – inside. He had barely formed any new friendships, and most definitely none with females.

Emily had seen women trying to approach him – no wonder: despite his being a convicted traitor, at around thirty-five he had still been one of the most attractive men in the covert – but he had politely turned all of them down. There had been a few real beauties among his 'admirers' – women with such delicate features and lithe bodies as Emily had never hoped to possess herself, and yet, he had paid them no attention. Not even to the granddaughter of a general who, who knows how, had wound up at the Sydney covert and stayed for months before leaving for England to rejoin her grandfather. Emily had once heard her muttering to him something about the possibility of pulling a few strings for him through the general, but he had kindly turned that offer down as well. Emily had not overheard much of that discussion, but could well imagine what kind of strings the general's granddaughter would have pulled for Laurence and what she would have asked for in return…

Now, at the age of forty-one, with greying temples and ever deepening lines on his forehead, Laurence no longer was one of the most attractive males in the covert, nor was he approached by any of the females any more. As far as Emily knew, the only woman around her captain who possibly had feelings for him besides her was Marian Digby, one of Temeraire's harnessmen. However, after Laurence had turned down rich, influential and beautiful women, Emily had not for a single second considered ugly little Marian a potential threat to her nonexistent relationship with Laurence; but problem was: she could not consider _herself_ as a potential threat for Laurence's virtue either. After all, if her captain really wanted to accomplish something, there was no force on earth to hold him back, and he was set on following through his own plan of never touching a woman again.

_Oh, heck_, Emily thought, the memories of Brianna Johnson and her sad legacy ruining her mood even more. With a defiant glance towards her captain, she reached once more for the bottle of port and filled her glass to the brim. _To your health, my sweet beloved damned tormentor,_ she raised it towards him, then swallowed the whole in two gulps.

Next thing she knew was that two people – she had no idea who – were carrying her across the dewy lawn, their hands beneath her elbows. Although her head felt unbearably heavy, she lifted it to identify Lieutenant Allen and Smith the midwingman.

"You must be put into bed," Allen said upon seeing her confused expression. "The captain's orders. God, you have made a real cake of yourself by the dinner table, the captain was livid but he held back from shouting, you know, gentleman as always… Here we are, the barracks. Now, we are going upstairs, Roland, one leg after the other…"

"Shut it, Allen, I'm not stupid just drunk!" she snapped, trying to throw both man's arms off herself, but no sooner had she taken two steps alone than she swayed and had to be caught by Allen and Smith once again. Swallowing her pride and hoping she would manage to keep at least a bit of it by not throwing up over the steps, she decided to keep her mouth closed for the rest of the journey, and only opened it to say thanks once they had deposited her on her bed. Sadly instead of 'thanks' her dinner left her mouth, and she was thoroughly ashamed, reclining on the bed, watching as the two men tried to clean up the floor. "Don't tell the captain… please," she croaked. "I will do anything, just don't tell him…"

"I'm only asking you one thing, Roland," Allen grinned at her, wiping the left sleeve of his cloak with his unrecognisably dirtied handkerchief, "next time do not vomit on me."

Emily vaguely returned the smile. "I shall not. Promise."

"Good. Here, Captain Jacobs pushed this into my hand as we were carrying you out, it must have arrived along with the letter that held the Waterloo news." With that Allen gave her a neatly folded envelope, the seal of Admiral Roland easily recognisable on its back. "Try to rest a bit."

Emily nodded shakily. "Do you… do you think the captain will demote me now?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Roland, what are you thinking?" Smith grunted. "Believe me when I'm telling you, you aren't the only one who got drunk tonight. Bet tomorrow's breakfast table will have quite a few empty places… Besides, the captain doesn't demote someone for getting drunk after hearing news like Waterloo… Had you got drunk on duty, he might have… but if I were you, I wouldn't worry about that. Now sleep, girl, or your hangover will be even worse tomorrow."

"Even worse than now?" Emily groaned and closed her eyes, not even realising that she, as Temeraire's second lieutenant, was supposed to snap at a mere midwingman for treating her like a snot-nosed kid. But her head was simply too dizzy for that, her thoughts sluggish and jumbled.

She barely noticed the door closing behind her crewmates with a soft click, all she saw was a hazy image of her captain glowering at her from a distant corner of the room. She groaned and turned on her bed to be facing towards the wall, but her mind refused to let go of Laurence's stern expression. _Oh, to hell with you, stop appearing in my head_, she begged, screwing her eyes shut and burying her face in the pillow. As though Laurence had heard her silent plea, his image slowly faded from her mind to be replaced by welcome darkness.

It was a few hours later that Emily awoke. The sky was still pitch black outside, it must have been two or three in the morning, but her hangover was already attacking her with all its might, her head pounding mercilessly. _It's all his fault_, she thought with gritted teeth as his disapproving look once again appeared before her half-closed eyes. Then she reluctantly reminded herself that he could only be blamed for the last glass of wine she had consumed, the former two she had drunk out of joy upon hearing of Waterloo.

_Okay, perhaps not entirely his fault_, she admitted, along with the fact that her previous anger with Laurence had very likely been caused by the wine. With a clear head she would never have been able to bring herself to be mad at him – he had, after all, only involuntarily and unknowingly hurt her. He had done it on more than one occasion, but still, none of them had been deliberate, for he was too much of a gentleman to want to hurt a woman in any way. Even if he did not regard the woman in question as a _real woman_, like he had never regarded Emily as one.

Suddenly finding her posture highly uncomfortable, Emily fidgeted a bit, freeing her right hand from beneath her stomach where she had somehow trapped it before falling asleep. Now her hand felt practically numb and upon trying to move her fingers, she was surprised to find something clutched in them.

Oh, the letter from mother…

Slowly she sat up and with a few shaky steps stumbled to the table on which the pair of candles had almost burned down by now. In the meagre light she unfolded the letter, and trying to pay no attention to her horrible headache, began to read.

_My dearest Emily,_

_I hope this letter finds you in good health. Am I doing perfectly well, especially after Waterloo – you surely must have heard about it by now, I am sure Captain Jacobs will shout it from the rooftops once he receives my letter. But I digress._

_The reason why I am writing to you is not as pleasant as I would like it to be, but I hope you will not take it harshly. Now that the war with Napoleon is over, I have had some time to think of other things, and realised that my beloved daughter is going to turn twenty-one soon. By the time this letter reaches you, you surely have turned twenty-one. Happy birthday, my dear, whenever you get the letter, and welcome to the community of us, old adults!_

_Joking aside, I feel a pressing need to remind you that with adulthood come certain responsibilities, such as the ones towards your future dragon. You can surely guess what I am thinking about._

Emily blinked. Had she read it right? Or was the alcohol still playing tricks on her?

She reread the last two sentences. No doubt. There had been no misunderstanding… she _knew_ exactly what her mother was getting at, which made her heart clench with fear. How she had hoped her mother would forget about that… at least for a few more years! But she had not. After all, Jane Roland had always been a pragmatic person – duty over her own interests, a cold head over emotions. As a small girl, Emily had hoped to become just like her mother, but as the years passed, she came to realise that she were very different. Especially where emotions were concerned…

One of the candles went out with a soft hiss, and, with a lump in her throat, Emily continued reading.

_Yes, my dear, I am thinking of __**that**__. I was twenty-two when I got pregnant with you and barely twenty-three when you were born. Emily, it is time for you to think of Excidium's future, just like I thought of it at your age. _

_Please, do not get me wrong, I am not hurrying you in any way, but let us admit, I am not getting any younger; in about ten years – fifteen at most – you will have to take over Excidium's captaincy, and it is better for you to take care of the matter of breeding before you inherit him. You are just the right age to become a mother now, I suggest you use it! I expect you will not be sorely missed from Temeraire's crew if you withdraw from duty for a couple of months._

_I know I will not,_ Emily made a sour face. _Laurence would not even notice my absence…_

At this thought her earlier fear attacked with a fresh wave, sending shivers down her spine. _O God, mother really, really wants me to get with child! Just like that! But she'd never understand that it's not as easy for me as it was for her! _

_Emily, _the letter continued,_ I know it is not easy to oblige a request like that – it was not exactly easy for me either, but I never regretted having you, for I love you dearly. You too will love your daughter – or God forbid, son, if that is all you manage to produce – and in retrospect you will realise that it was not so bad, after all. I mean, being with a man. Your father was my first, and I had no feelings for him, but believe me, even like this, it was not unpleasant at all. Though I must admit I have had men with whom it __**was**__ much more pleasant._

_Like Laurence, eh?_ Emily snorted. As far as she knew, up till their leaving England, her captain had been the only man her mother had kept for more than one night. So there had to be something about his 'talents', for sure…

_You might be luckier than me, my dear. I never managed to feel true emotions for any of my temporary mates, but you might find a nice young man to love. I am keeping my fingers crossed for you, for I only want the best for my only daughter. _

_Take care, and please do not be mad at your old mother, nor at poor Excidium, just keep the Corps' best interests in mind. _

_I hope to hear good news from you soon._

_Lots of love,_

_Mother_

For minutes and minutes Emily just stared at the crumpled sheet of paper, her heart beating faster and her head pounding worse than ever before.

'_I only want the best for my only daughter'_

_But __**the best**__ doesn't even notice me!_ – Emily's mind screamed, her eyes fixed on the letter, as though she were trying to convey the message to her mother across two oceans.

'_you might find a nice young man to love'_

_He's not exactly young, but I love him… oh, I love him so much…_ Tears sprang to her eyes, but she wiped them quickly and angrily. In an instant she had made her decision. No matter what her mother wanted or what Excidium and the whole Corps needed – she would not sleep with a random man just to produce an heir! If she could not have Laurence's child, then she would have no one's, full stop. But how could she convince a man to get her pregnant if that man had sworn never to touch a woman again?

At that moment the second candle also burnt down. Emily propped her head in her palms, and stared into the complete darkness. "Oh, shit," was all she managed to comment.

oOo

**A/N: ****So, opinions so far? :)**


	2. Deadly Sins

**A/N: thanks to those, who reviewed chapter one.**

**Chapter 2**

**Deadly Sins**

Try as he might, Laurence did not manage to fall asleep. On the one hand, he was too excited about the news of the Waterloo victory, on the other hand, he was too upset by Emily's recent behaviour. And what upset him most was the exact notion that her behaviour _had_ upset him, as it should _not _have. It was, after all, not at all uncommon for a soldier, a marine or even a member of the Aerial Corps to get drunk from time to time. Laurence himself too had on a few occasions, but never as badly as Emily had tonight.

At first he had not wanted to admit that the reason her drunkenness had bothered him so much was that she was a woman, but every passing minute at the dinner table, seeing her making more and more of an idiot of herself, forced him to realise that it was her gender that disturbed him. To be precise, her gender paired with her consumption of alcohol. True, he had seen Jane Roland and Catherine Harcourt drink more than a well-behaved lady should, but never enough to discredit themselves by falling on the table and knocking a jug of wine into the lap of a senior captain across them. Emily had done just that: Captain Black's best coat and breeches were ruined beyond repair.

After Laurence had ordered Allen and Smith to take her to her room, something had even compressed his chest uncomfortably upon seeing his second lieutenant's head loll helplessly while being dragged away. A situation so unworthy of a lady… And that was when he had stiffened for a moment – when had he started thinking of Emily Roland as a 'lady'?

He had occasionally called her a young lady before, when she had only been a child, but in the past few years he had not for a single second regarded her as anything but a faithful and talented member of his crew. Not a lady, for sure…

Now, having tucked himself away in the crook of Temeraire's foreleg, not wanting to withdraw to his small and hot room when it was already pleasantly cool outside, Laurence tried to fall asleep, but caught himself tossing and turning instead. Finally, giving up on the rest, he threw off his coat that he had used as a blanket, then, careful not to wake the dragon, clambered to his feet.

There were a few lanterns lit on the trees nearby, but when he stepped into the shadow of a larger tree and raised his eyes to the sky, he could easily make out the Southern Cross, shining brightly in the veil-like ribbon of the Milky Way. Laurence took a few deep breaths, enjoying the balmy scent of the night. Under normal circumstances a nice walk under the stars calmed him, but tonight he could not escape from the unsettling feelings that Emily's 'performance' had instilled in his heart.

"Laurence, what is the matter?" Temeraire asked all of a sudden, sounding wide awake, not as someone who had just awoken from his slumber.

"Oh, I thought you were asleep."

"I would have been, but I wanted to wait for you to go to sleep first. When you came here, you seemed upset despite the news of the victory, and I wanted to make sure you calmed down before I dozed off. But you apparently have not…"

Laurence made a wry face and settled back into the crook of Temeraire's foreleg, patting it gently. "Please, do not worry about me, my dear. Just go to sleep."

"Not until you have told me what is bothering you," the dragon replied stubbornly.

"Oh, it is just… Emily. Tonight she got horribly drunk and I could not help but feel mortified by it, which I usually do not when anyone else in my crew gets intoxicated… and I wonder why it has bothered me so much to see _her _like that?" Laurence muttered, although he had a vague idea what the answer to his own question might be. However, that answer scared him enough to want to push it out of his mind and not even give himself a chance to contemplate it.

"Oh, it must be your fatherly feelings for her," Temeraire suggested.

"_Fatherly_ feelings?" Laurence choked.

"Why, have you not been thinking of her as a substitute for a daughter you never had? Even your parents thought she was your child… and had you got acquainted with Jane a few years earlier, Emily _could_ have been yours."

Laurence hid his face in his palms, even though he knew Temeraire probably could not see his burning cheeks in the almost-darkness. How could he explain to his dragon without getting even more embarrassed that he had never had any fatherly feelings for Emily, and that tonight his feelings for her had been as un-fatherly as possible? The words 'Emily' and 'lady' had kept popping into his mind all evening, in various contexts, as in 'Emily has become a fine young lady', or in 'Emily is not behaving like a young lady should', and none of the contexts had anything to do with a father's pride or shame.

"Laurence…?" Temeraire spoke up after his captain had remained silent for a while. "Have I said something that hurt you?"

"No, no, my dear… you are completely right to think I should be having fatherly feelings for her… after all, I _am _old enough to be her father…"

"But you do not," Temeraire drew the conclusion. "And if you do not consider her as your daughter, but still have strong feelings for her… does that mean you would rather give her an egg?"

"What? No, of course not!" Laurence jumped to his feet, shaking his head and flailing with his arms. After a long second he dropped his hands and realised he was overreacting things. For one, Temeraire's suggestion should not have upset him so much… but if it had, then it had to have a foundation. And that foundation was highly disturbing. He had sworn to himself not to even think of women ever again… and Emily was a woman. Yes, she was _definitely a woman_, the realisation of which had slowly dawned upon him in the past few months or weeks – he did not even know how and when exactly – but it had only come through loud and clear tonight, when she had _not _been acting like a woman at all. As for 'giving her an egg'… Laurence heaved a sigh.

Before he had become Temeraire's captain, he had wished for nothing more than to marry Edith Galman and start a family – lonely nights at sea he had daydreamed of a loving family waiting for him at home… but that dream had shattered into a million pieces because Temeraire had chosen him.

As an aviator, his only hope of ever having children had been either through getting Jane pregnant by accident or getting a sugar-coated order from the Admiralty to breed. Neither of which had happened.

Temeraire had turned ten years old, and Laurence had not received such orders – the Admiralty must have forgotten about him, and if he were completely honest with himself, he had to admit that he did not count as the most eligible candidate to father future Corps officers. After all, who would want to expose an innocent child to the humility of having a traitor as a father? No, obviously no one would. And now, in retrospect, Laurence could easily imagine this to be the reason for Brianna's horrible acts: she could not have wanted to give birth to a child who would only be mocked by its peers for having a father like Laurence…

He had never asked Brianna why exactly she had done it – he simply did not want to hear it. He knew just enough to be miserable even without hearing excuses she might have tried to come up with: he knew that she had not loved him. For had she loved him, she would have at least given their child a chance. But, Laurence thought sometimes sadly, could it be possible that she had only done it to save the child from having William 'Traitor' Laurence as its father?

Yes, in the past six years Laurence had learned to blame himself for everything – even for Brianna's hideous sin of murdering their baby. Had someone else begotten it, it might not have had to die.

By now, Laurence had completely given up on his earlier desire to start a family – not only was there no woman who would want anything more from him than just one night stands without further obligations, but surely there would be none who would be willing to carry his child. And perhaps it was just how things were supposed to be. William Laurence was not meant to be a father or a husband. At least, he had managed to convince himself that he was not.

"Are you sure?" Temeraire pressed on. "Giving eggs is highly enjoyable, besides, Emily is quite pretty, and well, you are not that very old yourself…"

"Oh, thanks," Laurence replied caustically.

"You are most welcome. Would you please turn around?"

"Why?"

"Just turn around," the dragon motioned his captain, drawing a circle in the air with his talons.

Though feeling confused, Laurence obliged.

"Oh, yes, indeed…" Temeraire murmured.

"What indeed?" Laurence raised an eyebrow as he peered at the dragon over his shoulder.

"Oh, nothing, I just heard Marian Digby and Helena Parker the other day talking about how nice, firm a behind you had. Just had to check it out. I think they were right, as far as I can judge with a male dragon's eyes, your behind is indeed firm for your age."

That was when Captain Jacobs walked past them to his own dragon, the look of shock on his face quite visible even in the vain light of the lanterns.

Laurence slapped his forehead and groaned inwardly. He did not want to imagine what kind of news Jacobs would be spreading about him after overhearing this…

"Next time you decide to tell me something humiliating, please be so kind and do it when others are not around," he murmured to Temeraire after Jacobs had got out of earshot.

"But why is it humiliating, Laurence? I thought you would be delighted to hear that women still think you are a remarkable male specimen. Probably even Emily thinks that way…"

"Shhh!" Laurence pressed his index finger to his lips. Jacobs might not have heard _his _latest sentence, but Temeraire, as a sizable dragon, could not speak quietly enough. "The last thing I want is for Emily to find out that I am having… sinful thoughts about her!" he added in an angry whisper.

"Sinful? But why would it be sinful?"

Laurence rolled his eyes in disbelief. "You know, the Bible says that… oh, forget it. Tonight is not the night I want to discuss things like that… It is just enough for me having to listen to that every other Sunday in church…"

"Oh, tomorrow is going to be a Sunday," Temeraire remarked.

"Do not even remind me," Laurence sighed.

"Pray tell, Laurence, if you dislike going to church so much, why do you do it?"

"I do not dislike it, and as a Christian it is my duty to go, but… I cannot help wishing Reverend Whitwell were a little better at preaching and his choice of themes were a little more… diverse. Last week he finished the communion by announcing that tomorrow's main theme would be the seven deadly sins… again. For at least the tenth time since we came to Australia."

"The seven deadly sins?" Temeraire echoed his words. "And what are those?"

"Well… gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride, and…" Laurence blushed crimson once again, "…lust."

"And what about killing others? Is that not a deadly sin?"

"Of course it is…"

"Then why is it not included among the seven? And why are envy and pride and sloth included? Those are not that bad… and lust… well, that is definitely _not_ bad at all!"

"Thank heaven the Bible was written for humans, not dragons. I think I had better sleep inside. Good night, Temeraire," Laurence muttered, and snatching up his cloak from the ground, bounded off for the main covert building, leaving a thoroughly confused Temeraire behind.

oOo

"…_and gluttony is considered a sin because it means an excessive desire for food, and because its withholding from the needy, and as St. Thomas Aquinas wrote it is 'a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things',_" Reverend Whitwell droned on, making Laurence almost fall asleep at his usual solitary place in the pew at the very back of the church. The sermon had started over ten minutes earlier and in a matter of twenty seconds had managed to lull all listeners into an early morning stupor. Laurence even thought he heard someone snore a few pews ahead, and Captain Bowles' head had just dropped onto the shoulder of his lover, Lieutenant Jessica Beckett.

Laurence turned his head away from the blatant display of affection, dismayed. Bowles and Beckett were very young, but in his opinion that did not justify such openness in a relationship, especially not within the walls of a church. Then again, he reminded himself with a pang of remorse, he had not exactly made a secret of his relationship to Brianna Johnson either...

With Jane Roland he had been more discrete, regarding her as a more or less respectable woman and England as a more or less civilised place, but Australia was still far from being civilised and Brianna had been even more straightforward in expressing her desires than Jane had been. Besides, when he had been 'courting' Jane – if occasionally sleeping with her and buying her a jade necklace that he never had a chance to hand over _could_ be called 'courting' – he had still considered himself an honourable gentleman whose task was to protect a lady's reputation. After being banished to Australia, he had had a short period of time when he had thought nothing mattered. His reputation could not have been ruined further, and thus shrugging off responsibility and throwing caution to the wind, he had willingly flung himself into the arms of the first temptress that had come his way.

After Brianna's deliberate miscarriage, however, things had changed for him. On the cliff where Emily had caught him crying, his pain had still been too fresh to think it over, and he had been blaming Brianna for everything. As time passed, he had come to realise that he had been just as guilty as she had. And that was when he had started attending the Sunday services – something he had earlier avoided as often as he could. His conscience had badly needed relief, and the one source of relief he could hope for was his faith in God. It was sad though that the only church near the covert happened to have a vicar closer to seventy than sixty, good-natured but senile and horribly boring in his preaching.

"_Pride, my brothers, is considered by many the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins, and the ultimate source from which the others arise. It is a desire to be more important than others, and excessive love of self, especially holding self out of proper position toward God, which, my brothers, is indeed a hideous sin and woe betide those who…_"

Laurence heaved a sigh. He could not help but feel the vicar's words strike home – all his life he had been proud, even proud of his pride, if such a thing was possible at all. More often than not his stupid pride had landed him, Temeraire and his crew in hopeless situations, but he had tried and tried to convince himself that he had had every right to be proud.

He no longer thought so. There was not much in his life he could be really proud of – perhaps only his and Temeraire's crazy rescue of the world's dragon population, and even that had resulted in a disaster for his homeland – in the deaths of thousands of Englishmen, in the rape of innocent women, in the ruination of whole cities. If there had not been the refuge of faith, he would very likely have gone mad by now. But once, in the early days of his attending the church, Reverend Whitwell had cited to him a verse from the Psalms: _"Like as a Father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust."_ This line from the Bible had given him hope – hope that his sins might be indeed forgiven, for the Lord was merciful.

At that moment, however, all his thoughts of the Lord's mercy flew out of his mind as Emily Roland flopped down next to him, muttering a "Sorry, I tried to be on time, must have overslept, has he said anything of interest so far?"

Laurence was so shocked he could not even reply, for several reasons. Firstly, he had always thought it improper to talk during a service; secondly, Emily had so far never appeared for the Sunday services, except once or twice for the Christmas Midnight service; thirdly, she was wearing a dress. A _female_ dress. And not just some dress: a crème coloured, frilly one with a shamelessly deep cleavage, the sort that ladies usually wore to evening occasions, not to the church!

Blushing, he shook his head, diverting his eyes from her.

"_And finally, my brothers, I must address the sin that I personally regard as the greatest of all the seven: lust,_" the vicar carried on, and despite the flatness and emotionless quality of his voice, a shiver ran down Laurence's spine. "_Adultery, fornication, self-abuse, these are all things that the Lord hates, and…_"

"I wish mother could hear this," Emily whispered into Laurence's left ear. "But she never cared much for religion…"

Swallowing the lump in his throat, and, trying to fix his stare on the nape of an elderly man before him, Laurence nodded. He could not imagine Reverend Whitwell's preaching having much effect on Jane Roland's ideas of sexuality, but perhaps it would not hurt her to attend a service or two…

Emily chose that moment to lean over him to fish the leather-bound Book of Common Prayer from the pew shelf before him. Even if he had so far managed to force himself to close her out of his range of vision, her stretching before him had involuntarily drawn his eyes to her, precisely to her swelling bosom on which his eyes – also involuntarily – lingered even after she had settled back next to him, absentmindedly leafing through the book. With beads of sweat forming on his temples he noticed that there were freckles on her chest, disappearing in a neat row into her décolletage. Her leafing movements made the frill on her breast flutter a bit, her chest rising and falling in delicate ripples.

Laurence felt his cheeks burn and quickly looked away, directing his glance back at the vicar. For a second the old man looked his way, and Laurence did not know whether he had just imagined that the disapproving look in old Whitwell's eyes had been directed at _him_ in particular, or at the whole congregation whose dubious morals the vicar had always been aware of.

"_My brothers, as the Bible says, the only acceptable way of physical relations between a man and a woman is within holy matrimony. Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, 'But if they cannot contain, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn'…_"

Laurence swallowed the lump in his throat and squeezed his eyes shut. There was no way he would let a woman distract his thoughts from the communion!

_Yes,_ he recited in himself, _it is only acceptable in marriage, so do not even think of her that way!_ Before his closed eyes, however, Emily appeared, leafing through the book of psalms, looking utterly innocent yet more exciting than any woman he had ever laid eyes upon…

With utter horror, his eyes flew open and he snatched another copy of the Book of Common Prayer off the shelf, opened it with shaking hands, placed it in his lap and held it in a way that would hopefully conceal the obvious.

"…_and the Lord Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount declared 'But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart'…_"

Laurence felt rivulets of sweat running down the sides of his face and his breath was coming in gasps. _O God,_ he closed his eyes once again, _why are you punishing me like this? Have I not yet repented enough?_ _I beg you to help banish her from my mind, for it must be the work of the devil to send me such unholy thoughts here of all places! Help me, Lord, for I am not strong enough alone…_

Sometimes it is said that God has a peculiar sense of humour, and Laurence did not know whether the Almighty was being merely amused by his predicament or had just simply not bothered to listen to his prayer, all he knew was that he was feeling worse and worse with every passing second. The early morning warmth of the church had suddenly increased to unbearable heat, his clothes had got soaked with sweat in a matter of minutes and his limbs were shaking.

Trying to regain his composure, he organised his cloak for better concealment, chancing a sideways glance at the girl next to him. She seemed oblivious to the awkward situation she had landed him in, her eyes fixed on the vicar, her left holding the book, her right absentmindedly playing with a frill on her chest. It was obvious she was not used to wearing female dresses, as an average woman would have learned by the age of twenty-one that playing with your dress was a telltale sign of lack of manners. Yet with Emily it could not be called incivility, for her movements were as natural as everything else had been for her from an early age on…

Involuntarily her image bathing in the sulphurous pool in the ferals' cave came to his mind, all the innocence of her being squeezed into her confused little face upon hearing that she had been behaving improperly… and Laurence could not help but picture what it would be like to see her in that pool now…

_Enough,_ his mind screamed. _Enough!_

"…_and of course, when lust is mentioned, we must not forget about the narcissistic type of lust, self-love or self-gratification_," the Reverend droned on. "_The emphasis, my brothers, is on 'self', not on one's relationship with God or one's family members. We can establish that self-abuse is not part of God's original design for man and can never be entirely fulfilling since it is inherently an incomplete act. God did not design physical relations to be a solitary experience, they are supposed to be shared with another, and only in holy matrimony! And woe betide the man who engages in…_"

Laurence could take it no longer. A few more minutes and the preaching would be over and they would have to kneel down for the prayers of intercession, and if he did not manage to calm down by then – and he was not exactly sanguine he would – then it would be highly likely that Emily _would_ notice his predicament. After all, he could not carry on clutching the prayer book to himself even in a kneeling position… And if Emily noticed it… he would undoubtedly die of shame.

"Excuse me," he mumbled, holding the sides of his cloak in a way that hopefully only suggested he had a bit of a stomach ache, and sidled out of the pew to the right, then hurried out of the building as though a thousand devils had been chasing him.

The little church built near the covert was situated on the skirts of the forest, and with a few deliberate steps Laurence found himself hidden by the dense foliage. One of the church windows must have been left open, as the lines '_Almighty and everliving God, who by thy holy Apostle hast taught us to make prayers, and supplications, and to give thanks for all men'_ sounded up somewhere behind him, the sound fading with every step he took deeper and deeper into the forest.

He did not know how long he had run, he only stopped when he felt he was completely out of breath and far enough from the rest of the world for no one to hear him. Panting, he leaned against a tree. _Why, O Lord, why? Do you not see I am too old for this? I thought this part of my life was over… so why is it not? Save me from sin, O Lord, save me…_

The silence around him was almost depressing, almost frightening, as though the little chirps of the birds and the whistle of the wind on the treetops had died away too, Laurence's raspy breathing the only sound in the tiny clearing.

No answer came. Not that he had been hoping for any, not a verbal one anyway, but at least an abatement of the burning in his loins…

Reverend Whitwell's words echoed in his mind, the only sound he heard beside his own heavy breathing…

"_God did not design physical relations to be a solitary experience, they are supposed to be shared with another, and only in holy matrimony! And woe betide the man who…"_

"Oh, for heaven's sake, do not look at me like that! I have not been with a woman for six years!" he said aloud, his eyes directed upwards, as though hoping to be able to address the Creator. "Forgive me… but I am not strong enough. I tried… I failed."

For several long minutes the clearing stayed silent, save for a name he muttered over and over; a name that sounded worshipped, almost holy from his lips.

Finally the world span back into place and the birds started chirping again, the wind felt once again cool on his face as he observed the sea of green around him through half-closed eyelids. For just a moment the world felt perfect, devoid of longing, devoid of shame.

Then a voice broke the idyll, "You know, sir, if you wanted me so much, you could have just told me."

oOo

**A/N: reviews inspire me to update faster… ;)**


	3. A More Or Less Decent Proposal

**A/N: **thanks to everyone who reviewed chapter 2, I'm glad I managed to make you laugh!

**Chapter 3**

**A More or Less Decent Proposal**

Despite the heat of the early summer morning, Laurence felt the blood freeze in his veins. He had barely pulled all his articles of clothing back into place when a highly familiar female voice chimed into the relative silence of the forest, "You know, sir, if you wanted me so much, you could have just told me."

Blue eyes wide like saucers, mouth hanging open, Laurence stared at the angelic beauty of Emily Roland leaning against a tree, her cream coloured dress speckled with sunlight filtering through the foliage, her sandy hair resplendent as the filtered rays danced on it – her angelic beauty, however, was in sharp contrast to the wicked grin on her face.

"E…E… Emily! What are you doing here?" he stammered, knowing that his face must have turned a darker shade of purple than a beetroot.

"I could be asking you the same, sir… but, I think I need not really ask, after all, I have _seen _what you were doing. As for me, I was just worried about your sudden exit, I thought you must have felt sick or something… so I followed you," she shrugged, one of the short sleeves of her deep-cleavaged dress slipping a few inches down her shoulder, uncovering more and more of her milky white skin.

Rendered practically dumb, Laurence only blinked – he could not fathom how a girl so young could talk so nonchalantly about having seen him indulging in… adult activities. Then again, Brianna had not been any older than Emily was now when she had seduced him, and compared to her, Emily was still the epitome of innocence. Or was she?

For the time being, she was fingering the frill on the 'neck' of her dress – whether innocently or deliberately, Laurence could not decide – he only knew that it resulted in the décolletage further widening. "Please," she said, "do not worry, sir, I shan't tell anyone, besides, you are not the first man I have seen falling into the sin of… 'self-love'…"

"Not the first…?" Laurence choked. Of course, how could she have talked so blatantly about things like this, had she still been innocent? Surely, the daughter of Jane Roland would find it beneath herself to stay a virgin beyond twenty…

Seeing his dumbfounded expression, Emily let out a chuckle. "Yes, sir, I have seen a few… Dunne and Hackley, for example. They did it all the time back in Asia… of course, only before you had them flogged… oh, and Demane too tended to play with himself. I do not know about Sipho, perhaps he was still too young for that when I last saw him. Once I caught Dyer too, he was so ashamed, the poor fellow… Apart from them… you are the only one I have had the pleasure of watching… and I must tell you… none of them looked nearly as beautiful as you did."

For a long second Laurence did not know how to react – laugh or reprimand her or simply keep quiet, or possibly run away? The latter option was definitely beneath him, laughing seemed highly improper, as for reprimand – who was he to tell her off after _she _had heard him muttering _her _name in the throes of passion? At this situation he was not her captain: he was merely a man caught red-handed.

"I… I am truly sorry, Emily. I had no right to… I never meant to… I just… I know there is no excuse for what I have done, and you cannot fathom how deeply ashamed I feel, and…"

"Please, do not apologise, sir, because then I too would need to apologise to you," she replied, stepping closer to him.

Laurence arched an eyebrow at her. "You? Apologise? For what?"

"For my attire, for example," she shrugged, the sleeves of her dress once again sliding down, "or for harbouring the same type of feelings for you as you have for me."

"Harbouring… what?"

"Lust," she said simply. "The old man in the church would be thoroughly outraged to hear me now, but I am coveting you, sir, be it a deadly sin or not."

Laurence swallowed hard. "You mean… you deliberately chose this dress to… to…?"

Emily gave him a crooked smile, shockingly similar to her mother's – yet there was something more to it… Jane's smile had never managed to compress his gullet in such a tormenting yet pleasant way…

"Yes, I must confess, I am wearing this dress for a special reason," she stepped even closer – too close in Laurence's opinion. "I will not be beating around the bush, sir. My mother reminded me in a letter that it was time for me to think of Excidium's future. In simple English, I need to produce an heir. And I would like to ask for your help."

Laurence stared at her, once again frozen. It took him several long seconds to recover his voice. "Er… certainly, Emily, I would love to help you."

"Really?" her face lit up.

_This is your chance to amend things,_ he told himself. _Your only chance!_ "Yes, Emily. I could help you put together a list of eligible bachelors. I am sure we could find just the right person to be the father of your child."

The spark that had flared up in her eyes, was snuffed out in an instant, and the wicked witch image she had managed to hold up for the last few minutes crumbled to reveal the uncertainty of a young girl. "But… that is not what I meant…" she muttered petulantly.

Laurence nodded. "I know. And yet, I fear I cannot offer any more than my… platonic help. The help from a friend to a friend."

"A _friend_?" she uttered the word with disgust, the uncertain young girl in her suddenly obscured by a flash of anger. "For Christ's sake, sir, I have never looked at you as a friend! I have always loved you as a _man_, and I do not wish to bear a child by anyone else." She heaved a deep sigh. "There. I think I have just made a complete fool of myself, but it had to be done. I do not expect you to love me in return… all I ask for is one night. You can surely…?"

"No, Emily. I cannot."

"Oh, sure you can, I have just seen that you are perfectly able…"

"That is not what I meant…" Laurence sighed, suppressing a desire to reach out and pull the sleeves of her dress back into place. He had after all just used his hands for something… highly improper. He could not touch her now, not even with the purpose of gentle reproof. "I am sorry, Emily. No more one night stands for me. Besides, you must surely remember what I told you all those years ago. I am through with women."

"Oh, yeah? And that is why you have been _loving yourself_ in the middle of a forest?" she snapped. "You know just as well as I do that you made that stupid vow in the belief that there was no woman on earth who would be faithful to you, but here I am, as faithful as one can be, therefore your vow is annulled!"

Laurence opened his mouth to reply, but she was quicker and carried on with the same vehemence, "All your former love interests have escaped you, and you fear that I would too, but I am willing to prove you wrong… by allowing you to marry me."

"You… what?" he gasped.

With a defiant expression, she folded her arms before her chest. "I have just proposed to you, if you have not noticed… sir."

It was not often that Laurence was rendered speechless, but this definitely belonged to those few occasions. He could only gape at her and notice the wild spark in her eyes – a spark of truth and determination.

Could it be? Could it be true that a pretty young creature like her would love an old, discredited man like him? And love him enough to want his child?

No. This could not be true. It was simply too nice to be true… it was surely just a dream he would soon wake up from and be slapped by cold reality. She would get bored of him too and flee him, surely she would…

But had she ever shown any willingness to flee him? She had had several chances to leave him but she had chosen to stay… She had indeed been faithful, more faithful than anyone besides Temeraire had been to him. And that faith he could not repay by ruining her life. For binding her to himself would eventually ruin her life. She would soon realise that her youthful foolishness had landed her in a trap, and it would be too late for her to escape…

Laurence could not let her fall into that trap. Not even if he was denying _himself_ the only chance at happiness. He had to do it. For her.

"I am deeply honoured, Emily," he said, his lips feeling suddenly as dry as a parchment. "I have never been asked such a question… and I do not think many men could claim to have. But my answer is still no."

Emily's eyebrows knitted and her lips trembled. "What… what of poor Excidium? Do you want him to stay without a captain after my death? You are his only hope!"

"Emily… you can give Excidium a future captain later… or even now, just with the help of another man. Someone more suitable for you. I meant it when I told you: I am willing to help you find the right young man, an honourable person who would be glad to marry you."

Now Emily's lips were trembling so much it was obvious she could barely repress her tears, "And I meant it when I told you that I did not want a child from anyone else."

"That will change. Just give it time, Emily. Believe me, it will change."

A single tear ran down her cheek. "It shan't. I will always love you."

"You might always love me… just in a different way. Like… a friend."

"Why are you saying no?" she sniffed, wiping her cheek.

"Because…" He knew he could not tell her truth – she would only hold him for a self-sacrificing fool. He hated having to lie, but he had to do it, in her interest. "Because I do not love you."

"You would not _need_ to love me for _that_," she snapped.

"You are quite mistaken, Emily."

"But you did not love my mother either, and yet you slept with her over and over again!"

"You are talking about intercourse. I am talking about love. In order to really want to give someone a child… I should love her. I like you a lot, Emily. You are courageous, quick-witted and kind hearted… but I love you as a friend, a faithful comrade in arms. You deserve someone who loves you for the woman that you are. I…" he hung his head, "I cannot give you that."

"Oh, but you _can_ enjoy yourself muttering my name," she hissed, her eyes flashing angrily at him.

He blushed once again. Every one of her words had struck home. "If that sets your mind at ease, I have not before done it with you in mind, and I swear I shall never again."

"No," she said defiantly, "it does not set my mind at ease… sir. But I can set yours at ease… I love you enough to keep your dirty little secret… even if you have not been willing to oblige me. Now, if you want to, you can continue whatever you were doing when I interrupted… for all I care!"

With that she trotted off into the forest, leaving a dumbstruck Laurence behind.

For minutes he stared at the spot where she had disappeared into the shrubbery, his heart heavier than ever. He was sure he had done the right thing in rejecting her, yet it was horribly difficult to let go of the tendrils of hope that had ever so fleetingly bound him to happiness.

Heaving a deep sigh, he headed back to civilisation.

oOo

Temeraire was worried about Laurence. His captain had only briefly visited him in the afternoon and even then looked distracted for some reason; and try as he might, Temeraire did not manage to extract any confession from him concerning his state of mind.

He got all the more worried, when, late in the evening, he spotted Emily Roland wandering aimlessly around the skirts of the covert grounds, her head hung, wearing a rather shabby looking cream coloured dress. Seeing Emily Roland in a female dress was a thing to remark in itself, but normally her appearance had always been tidy, if a bit boyish. Now, she looked feminine yet neglected as though she had dragged that unfortunate dress through a long row of the thickest brambles and even a few miles of marshy land.

"Hey, Emily," the dragon called out to her, and she raised her head to look at him. Even in the dim light of dusk the sadness was easily recognisable on her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed, as though she had been crying, and her face unusually pale with slightly darker streaks of dirt – or could those be the paths of earlier shed tears?

"You look a fright," Temeraire told her as she walked closer.

"Thanks," she made a wry face.

"What happened? Can I help?"

"Not unless you can talk some sense into your dim-witted captain…"

"Oh, so it _is_ about Laurence… I should have known."

"I have made a total cake of myself before him."

"Yes, I know that…" Temeraire leisurely flicked away the bone leg of a cow.

"You _know_?" she gasped.

"Yes, of course, Laurence has told me everything."

"_Everything_?" Emily paled even more.

"Oh yes, but never fear, I am sure you were not the only one at the dinner table yesterday who got drunk."

"Oh…" her mouth twitched as though she could not decide whether to laugh or groan, "I thought… he told you something… _else _about me."

"No, should he have?" Temeraire gave her a curious look which for some reason made her blush.

"Not really… at least, no gentleman would ever tell anyone about such things, not even his best friend, but… you and he are even closer than best friends. He might as well have told you."

"In all honesty I have no idea what you are talking about, but if it is bothering you so much, I am here to listen. Get it off your chest, Emily."

The girl hesitated for a moment, then dropped herself on the ground in a manner that Temeraire had never seen from a lady wearing a nice long dress. But Emily's dress already looked crumpled and dirty, so perhaps she thought that dirtying it a little more no longer mattered.

"All right…" she began, her voice shaking a bit, "but please, promise me not to laugh at me."

"Why would I laugh at you?"

"Only because… the whole story is so very embarrassing…"

"Even more embarrassing than getting drunk before the whole covert?"

"Yes," she wrinkled her nose. "Much more embarrassing."

"Oh, that sounds exciting… please, do carry on."

"Exciting, huh?" Emily shook her head in disbelief. "I should say not. It all started with a highly unsettling letter I received yesterday from my mother. In that letter she reminded me that it was time for me to… give Excidium a future captain."

"Oh, you mean, have an egg?"

"Yes," she pursed her lips, "have an egg. And today I have foolishly asked our captain to give me one."

"Have you?" Temeraire's dark blue eyes widened.

"Yes, I have… and he said an outright no."

"Oh… I wonder why… he does like you a lot, so I really do not see why he would refuse."

"Because he only likes me as a friend," she sighed, pulling up her legs and propping her jaw on her knees. "And now perhaps not even as that."

"Excuse me, Emily, but where do you get such delusions?"

"Well, he told me that…"

"Then he lied."

The girl's eyebrows shot up and almost disappeared behind her fringe. "_Lied_?"

"Yes, he must have, although I cannot comprehend why… he is not a man who usually lies to anyone. He must be the most honourable human I have ever met, so… I am confused now as to why he would lie to you, but I am quite sure he did, nevertheless."

A spark of hope glinted in her eyes as she asked, "And what makes you think he lied to me?"

"Well…" The dragon hesitated for a moment, knowing that divulging such information was probably nothing short of betrayal, but if he could help his captain on the long run by betraying him now, he would by all means do it. "He told me just yesterday evening that he liked you more than he would like to like you… and that he had…" Temeraire leaned a little closer to Emily and lowered his voice as much as possible, "_sinful_ thoughts about you."

"Oh, I know of the sinful thoughts, thank you very much," she snorted.

"You do?"

"Yes…" she blushed once again. "I caught him today… playing with himself… and muttering my name while doing it."

Temeraire could not repress a guffaw. "Oh, the little hypocrite! Do you remember when I happened to… enjoy myself a bit in a lake in Asia? He was so upset by it! As though he had never done it himself!"

Emily could not hide her grin. "Yes, I do remember… but still… the fact that he has sinful thoughts about me only proves that he is a healthy male who has not been with a woman for ages. I bet he has sinful thoughts about every other young and more or less pretty woman in the covert."

"Then why was he muttering _your_ name?"

"Because I provoked him into it, I think…" she bit into her lower lip, looking shy all of a sudden.

"Just like Iskierka, eh?" Temeraire said with a reminiscing smile. "She used to provoke me into things too… like giving her an egg after all. Hey, probably that is what you should do too, follow Iskierka's tactic: she would not leave me alone until I obliged her, and eventually I did, just to get rid of her."

"Oh, I do not think I could do that to Laurence," Emily said with her eyes downcast. "I do not feel enough courage… or cheek to stand before him every day and beseech him… not to mention that it would be very humiliating as well."

"But Iskierka never _beseeched_ me," Temeraire said brightly, "she simply came to me every day and said 'today you shall give me an egg'. It was a statement, not a request."

"Still, you only obliged her to get rid of her. I do not want Laurence to want to get rid of me… besides, he would never consent to giving me a child _then_ getting rid of me. He is way too noble for that… And even if it works that way for dragons, it does not for us, humans… You just lay the egg, and with that your parental duties are over… we, on the other hand, spend years and years to take care of our offspring."

"Well, now that you tell me, _that_ could be a problem," Temeraire admitted. "Never fear, Emily, we shall think of something…"

"You mean… you and me?" her eyes widened. "As accomplices? Are you really… supporting me in this?"

"Why would I not? I love Laurence dearly, and it hurts me to think he is lonely and unhappy. I have been observing him, and he has been like that for quite a long time. He is trying to conceal it, but I can see it, even if no one else can. And if I had to share his affections with someone, then I would rather it were someone like you. You are a nice girl, Emily, worthy of him."

"Thank you, Temeraire," she patted his side, gratitude shining in her eyes. "I just don't know what I should do, how I should begin at all… Neither do I know where I have failed so far… Is it possible I was too straightforward with him in the morning? Straightforwardness has worked for my mother and even for that tramp Brianna, so why not for me?"

"Tell you what, Emily… I think you are way too innocent to be really straightforward, and when you _are_ being straightforward, even that comes from innocence. Laurence senses that, and fears to ruin such innocence."

"In other words, I am pathetic when trying to be devious," she grimaced. "If only I inherited a little more of mother's ease at dealing with men! I simply have no idea how to treat them!"

"Well… one thing is sure… making them jealous always works," Temeraire lazily drew Chinese symbols into the dirt, "at least it worked for _me_… I remember how horrible I felt when I spotted an Imperial dragon trying to court Mei… I bet Laurence would feel just as horrible if he thought you were giving attentions to someone else."

"But whom?"

"Well, Allen seems a nice person, and he is young, so very young compared to Laurence… Laurence would surely be mad with jealousy if he saw such a _young_ man around you."

"I doubt that," Emily snorted. "Why, just this morning he _offered_ to me to help me find a young man for the role of the father!"

"Hmm… you know him, noble beyond imagination. Of course he would offer to do the noble thing while his heart and mind were suggesting him something else…"

Emily's lips finally tucked into a grin. "Well… perhaps it _could_ work… I would only feel sorry for Allen. I do not wish to use anyone just to make Laurence jealous. That would be very ignoble, wouldn't it?"

"Not if Allen happened to be in on the secret."

"What? Shall I tell him I want him to play my wooer to make our captain jealous?"

"You would not need to disclose all information. Just the fact that you need his help, a friendly help, to make _someone_ jealous. Allen is a helpful boy, I am sure he will not refuse."

"I shall think of it," Emily sighed, rising to her feet. "But first… I have to find the courage in myself to look Laurence in the eye again. And in all honesty, I am not sure I will be capable of it."

oOo

**A/N: review, please! :) **


	4. No Other Choice

**Chapter 4**

**No Other Choice**

Emily had been right to expect that looking Laurence in the eye the following day would be one of the most awkward experiences of her life, but the knowledge that it would be just as awkward for him gave her a bit of consolation.

She braced herself to give him a daring glance at the breakfast table, and was thoroughly disappointed to see that he was not there at all.

She barely managed to force some bacon and eggs into herself with her stomach doing nervous flip-flops all along, expecting him to enter any second, but soon she found she had consumed her food and drunk all her tea and there was still no sign of him.

Since she had finished breakfast earlier than the others, she decided to go for a walk before they had to gather by Temeraire's side. At the gate of the covert grounds, however, she stopped in her stride, spotting a highly familiar figure descend the stairs of the tiny church across the road.

He must have spotted her from a distance, because his steps got wary, as though he were hesitating whether to approach her at all.

Emily knew she had to make the decision for both of them, and straightening her back, she trotted towards him, ignoring the uneasy lump in her throat. She had been humiliated the earlier day, she would not be humiliated once again. She was a Roland, after all, daughter of the Admiral of the Air. No convicted, stripped-of-rank captain had the right to humiliate her – not even if that certain captain was the love of her life.

They met somewhere in the middle of the road between the covert gates and the church, both their faces red, both of them hesitant to speak first. Finally it was her who found her voice.

"Good morning, sir."

"Good morning, Mr. Roland," he replied with a slight inclination of his head.

She swallowed hard. _Mr. Roland_… He had not called her anything but 'Emily' since the final battle of England…

"I should like to apologize, sir," she said, forcing her voice not to waver. She had to look and sound determined – he must not see again how deeply he had hurt her. And once he believed that she was over it, she could step further and ask Allen for his help. Indeed, Temeraire's idea of making Laurence jealous was not that bad after all…

"My behaviour of yesterday was unacceptable and my request preposterous, I see it now," she continued. "Please, forgive me for my cheek, and let us forget that it happened at all."

The tenseness of his features slackened a bit and he even managed a relieved little smile. "I am so glad to hear that, Mr. Roland. I shall naturally forget and forgive everything."

At the sight of his vague little smile, all her determination flew out an imaginary window and she blurted out without thinking, "Can we stay friends at least?"

"Of course, Mr. Roland… as long as you promise me one thing."

"Anything, sir." _Talk about not humiliating myself_, she added bitterly in thought.

Laurence cleared his throat. "Next time you decide to attend a Sunday service, the idea of which I could only applaud you for, be so kind and wear decent attire… and if there is a vacant place anywhere else, I would highly appreciate it if you chose not to sit in the backmost pew."

Emily felt as though she had been slapped in the face, even harder than upon hearing him call her 'Mr. Roland'. "I _have_ put you in a horrible situation, haven't I?" she whispered.

"That you have…" he nodded, once again colouring a bit. "Yesterday, after the service Reverend Whitwell caught me and expressed his worries about my sudden departure… I do not think I could look him in the eye ever again after having had to lie him in the face… That is something I never wish to repeat, and even if I have just confessed my sins to the Lord, I do not think my conscience will ever be clear again…" He shook his head and made a wave of dismissal. "But let us not dwell on it, we cannot change what has already happened or make the sins of the past good, but we can influence our future… and I know just what I have to do in the future, especially concerning you, Lieutenant Roland."

She was almost too afraid to ask, but eventually she managed to screw up her courage. "What, sir?"

"Keep my distance, for both our sakes. We can be friends, but strictly platonic ones."

"Friends, you say?" she muttered, feeling as though an invisible hand were compressing her gullet, "how can I be your friend if I may not even sit next to you?"

"My request only concerns sitting in the church, Mr. Roland. But," he looked away, "I believe it is time for us to go look for Temeraire. I hope you and Mr. Allen have arranged for the crew to pack enough rations, we cannot be sure when we will find anything edible in the next few weeks…"

Emily only managed a jerky nod, knowing well enough what he meant: they were once again to be sent deep into the continent and would not return to the covert for a few weeks.

They walked silently through the gate, towards Temeraire and the rest of the crew; side by side yet more distant than ever. Emily could not help but feel some hollowness and some unfamiliar fear that the empty space in her heart would now never be filled.

He had turned her down in every way possible and done it as politely as possible, yet she felt that a rude rejection would have probably hurt less than his formal request to keep herself away from him.

Upon reaching Temeraire, they found a thoroughly upset crew.

"Captain," Smith addressed Laurence, "Allen has suffered an accident."

"What kind of an accident?" Laurence knitted his eyebrows.

"Well… a rather awkward one, sir," Marian Digby took over. "It happened merely a minute after Roland left the dining room. Allen was walking down the stairs with Juliet Anderson of Regulus' crew, and well… he missed a step."

"Missed a step?" Laurence echoed her words.

"Yes, sir. He was kind of… occupied with the lady, you know…"

"Oh. And how is he doing?"

"We took him up to his room and called a physician, he's being examined right now," Smith replied.

"I shall go and inquire about his state," Laurence said. "I will be back soon."

With that, he marched away, Emily staring after him with a heavy heart. "Do you think Allen's going to be okay?" she turned to the others.

"In all honesty, I'm not exactly sanguine," Smith scratched his beard-covered jaw. "He was out cold and his head bleeding rather badly. I should say we better start praying for the poor fellow. This is what I call lethal love…"

Even if Smith had meant his last comment as a dark joke, no one even cracked a smile. _Lethal love…_ Emily let out a deep, long sigh. At that moment she felt her love for her captain could be called just as lethal as Allen's for Anderson, for even it did not cause her physical harm, it was killing her from inside. It had been slowly killing her for several years, but since yesterday's disastrous events the process had frighteningly quickened. And now she realised she could not even ask Allen for his help – he was very obviously in love with another woman.

Laurence returned twenty minutes later with a concerned expression. "The doctor says he will live, but he has had severe concussion and lost lots of blood. He must not leave his bed for at least two weeks, so there is no option but to leave him behind. Mr. Roland, until Mr. Allen gets better, you are my second in command. Everyone aboard, if you please!"

oOo

"Do you still think that crocs rule?" midwingman Everett jeered at young ensign Higgins. "Idiot."

"It was not the croc's fault that it was hungry!" Higgins snapped, or rather, tried to snap, but his voice was wavering so much that it was obvious for Emily the poor boy was near a nervous breakdown. Just like her.

"Will you two shut up?!" she hissed at the young men.

Everett and Higgins straightened their backs and mumbled a "Yes, sir".

Emily knew that under different circumstances she should have been pleased by being addressed like this, but her worry was too strong for her pride to prevail. Fear such as she had never felt before clutched at her heart as she waited before the captain's tent, waited with bated breath for any news… even for the worst.

It had happened barely three hours earlier – they had been having a late lunch break near a half dried-up pond, Temeraire napping in the shadow of a cliff, Marian Digby cupping handfuls of water to wash her face. The crocodile had chosen this very moment to attack, and Marian, as a harnessman, had never been one of the most agile members of the crew, and would have been killed, had Laurence not been nearby to shove her aside. Since Temeraire's crew in Australia did not undertake military service, they had not been assigned riflemen, and Higgins, a boy of mere fourteen years and the only one with a gun worth mentioning, had acted on an instinct, with the best intentions at heart, but with an unsteady hand. By the time the shot had echoed from the cliff, Temeraire had snatched up the crocodile and crushed it in his claws, but for Laurence it had already been too late.

As Temeraire's current service was regarded as one with a lower danger factor than his previous, military one, he had not only not been assigned riflemen, but had not received his own doctor either.

Emily, for the first time in her life, had been forced to take command of the situation, and leaving the crew with the injured Laurence behind, had flown with Temeraire to the nearest settlement, a small military outpost near the skirts of the desert. The only physician she had found had had to be dragged from the bedside of a female lieutenant in labour.

Doctor Madison, a rather weird fellow in his forties, had only agreed to leave his patient behind if he was allowed to fly on the outpost's only smallish dragon, too afraid to board Temeraire, and had insisted that whatever the condition of Laurence was, he would return to poor Lieutenant Cartwright as soon as possible.

Seconds stretched into minutes, minutes into what seemed to be hours to Emily, when Doctor Madison finally left the tent. "I've removed the ball and patched him up best as I could. He was damn lucky that it did not go in three inches lower, or he'd be a goner."

"Is he still unconscious?" Emily asked, her voice trembling just as much as her whole body.

"I'd say he's _once again_ unconscious," the doctor replied with a smirk. "He came round shortly, but was in great pain so I gave him a healthy doze of laudanum. Now he'll sleep like a baby for ha' a day. Not even the howling of those blasted dingoes could wake him, I'm telling you, missy."

Emily let out a huge, relieved sigh. Under different circumstances she would have reprimanded the doctor for not addressing her properly, but she realised she could not care, not when Laurence was lying wounded nearby… at the moment nothing mattered, only his life.

"Does he have a fever?" Temeraire interjected, making the physician jump. He was obviously not used to mountain-sized dragons asking him questions.

"Not yet, but he might, later on. I'll come back and check on him in the morning, but now I've got to go back before Mrs. Cartwright pops out the baby. It's her first, always harder to deliver than the rest o' them."

"Well… thank you, doctor," Emily extended a hand, and was for a moment amused to find that Madison did not know what to do with her hand – kiss it, shake it? Finally he settled for a lame handshake that Emily returned in a much manlier way than the poor doctor had expected, then he climbed on the outpost's small dragon and flew off.

"Is Laurence going to be okay?" Temeraire asked anxiously once the doctor and his dragon had melted into the ever darkening sky.

"I hope so," Emily replied. "I hope so…"

_Hope._ It was a peculiar word – so short, yet with so deep a meaning…

Emily entered the tent and her heart clenched at the sight of Laurence lying there unconscious, his upper body bare save for the bandage, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

She was instantly reminded of that awful day in Africa, when her captain had been brutally flogged then dropped into their cave half-dead, his back a bloody horror. He looked less broken now, but Emily could not help but feel just as strongly, if not stronger for him than she had all those years ago. For back in Africa she had not yet realised that she loved him.

She sat down next to Laurence, watching him silently.

Someone had let his hair loose from the queue and it was spread on the makeshift pillow of his own bloodied cloak and shirt, blond locks shot with grey ones. Emily did not remember when she had last seen him look so peaceful and so beautiful, if somewhat fragile.

She touched his forehead – it was barely warmer than normal, he did not have a fever yet, but she reached out for a bucket full of water nonetheless, and using his stained neckcloth as a rag, mopped at his forehead. At that moment she stiffened, rag in her hand, her eyes fixed on the bucket.

'_Now he'll sleep like a baby for ha' a day.' _

'_I've got to go back before Mrs. Cartwright pops out the baby.'_

_Baby… baby… baby… _the word echoed in her mind.

She screwed her eyes shut. The maddest idea had just came to her mind – so utterly, horribly mad that it scared her. _He will sleep for half a day… he won't wake up, no matter what happens around him, or… to him. And I have a bucket of water to clean up any traces after…_

_O God, what am I thinking?_ She dropped the rag as though it had burned her.

She stood up, wringing her hands. The idea was so repellent yet so alluring… it was sin beyond sin, but sweet like honey…

He had sworn never to touch a woman again, but she had sworn never to have anyone else's child. He would not be breaking his own vow, as he would not be touching her, and she would not break her own vow either.

He would not need to know. He would be fast asleep, after all. Hopefully not all his body functions had completely gone to sleep, she thought, biting her lower lip. She was still scared beyond imagination. If anything of what Reverend Whitwell had told the other day in the church was true, she would burn in hell for this for all eternity… but rather that than force herself to sleep with someone she did not love.

Taking a deep breath, she walked out of the tent.

"How is he doing?" one of the harnessmen asked, but all the heads around the campfire had turned her way.

"Better. Mr. Smith, would you keep watch outside? I shall watch over the captain myself."

"Yes, sir."

Emily nodded, hoping that her voice had not been shaky enough for the crewmembers to notice her nervousness.

"Are you sure he is doing better?" Temeraire enquired.

"Yes, I am. He is peacefully sleeping. No need to worry," she replied, but to herself her voice sounded as though it had come from outside, not from her own mouth. Her voice, her thoughts, everything felt so unfamiliar, save for that pleasantly prickling sensation in her belly. That sensation she knew to be desire.

"Good night to everyone," she said finally, ducking back into the captain's tent.

With shaking limbs, she lowered herself on the ground next to him, waiting. Waiting for the voices and noises of fidgeting to die outside until the only sounds were the gentle snoring of the crewmembers and the soft crackling of the fire.

That was when Emily realised she had become so stiff she could barely move. Shakily, hesitantly, she reached out and caressed Laurence's face – something she had always dreamed of doing.

"I am so sorry, Will," she whispered, although she knew he could not hear her. Somehow it was better to ask for his forgiveness, even if he could not comprehend and could not answer it. "I am sorry, but you have left me no other choice. If… if this is really as great a sin as the vicar says, then I am sure the Lord shall not allow me to conceive. But I have to try… I just have to. I love you, Will." She gently touched her lips to his – something she had also dreamed of doing, but in her dreams he had always responded.

A single tear ran down her cheek as she fumbled with the fastenings of his breeches. "I love you. Never forget that."

Hope.

It was indeed a peculiar word with so many meanings…

Hope that he would forgive her for what she was about to do if he ever found out…

Hope that he would _never_ find out…

…and hope beyond hope that she would succeed at all.

oOo

**A/N: now you finally understand the story's title. :)**

**Be so kind and leave a review!**


	5. The Most Peculiar Dream

**A/N: thanks for all the reviews! I have replied to the signed ones, as usual.**

_Nimbus Llewellyn_: nope, no twins.

**Chapter 5**

**The Most Peculiar Dream**

"Mr. Smith, you may now go to sleep. Mr. Black, it is your turn to keep watch outside. Mr. Gordon, would you please watch the captain inside?"

Three 'Yes sir's were murmured, just as quiet as the orders had been, but they still managed to rouse Temeraire. He lifted his head and glanced at a rather exhausted looking Emily. "Is Laurence all right?"

"Yes, he is quite all right," she nodded, and even in the dim light of dawn, it was obvious to Temeraire that she was avoiding his glance. "He had a bit of a fever around midnight, but it has abated by now. I am sure Doctor Madison will reassure us that our captain is recuperating nicely."

"Well, I hope the doctor comes back soon, or I shall fly to that settlement and drag him here once again," Temeraire replied.

"We must wait… until the baby is born," Emily said, her eyes still downcast. "And since it's a first child, it can last up to thirty hours... or more. I know my mother was in labour with me for twenty-nine… And even after the baby is born, the doctor will need a bit of a rest. We cannot expect him to dash back here, especially since he confirmed yesterday that the captain was doing well in the circumstances."

"I see," Temeraire nodded, if a bit reluctantly. "But pray tell, Emily, would you too be willing to have an egg if it takes thirty hours to push it out? It sounds an awful lot of time…"

For some reason Emily blushed and wrapped her arms around herself as though she were shivering. "I… I have to think of Excidium. Sometime. Later. But let us not talk about it now, shall we? I am so very tired…"

With that she tucked herself away under her blankets, and barely a minute later she was fast asleep with what Temeraire thought to be a blissful smile on her face.

o

The doctor arrived shortly before noon, his eyes blood-shot and his face unshaven. "Twins," he announced dryly. "And boys, both of them. Mrs. Cartwright nearly broke into tears when she found out she had given birth to two kids, and neither of them a girl. She had allegedly wanted to send a daughter back to England, because her sister, the captain of a Longwing, turned out to be barren, and she had promised her sister to provide the dragon with a future captain. Eh, aviators, you are weird folks, sacrificing yourselves on the altar of duty, even sinking so low as to engage in unholy relations and breed yourselves like you do your dragons…"

Temeraire saw the appalled expressions on the faces of his crew – some were red, others pale with anger, only the doctor did not notice that he was actually insulting them. But, Temeraire concluded, Madison might have just been too tired to realise that what he was saying was offensive. The doctor certainly did not look like someone who had slept a wink that night, and Temeraire was grateful enough to him for having come to check on Laurence at all, so he decided not to bring it to the doctor's attention that some of the crewmembers were eyeing him with hands balled into fists.

Once Madison had disappeared into the captain's tent, the seething men calmed down a bit, their angry blushes slowly fading, but Emily, belonging to the ones who had paled instead of reddened in anger, still looked as white as a sheet.

"Are you doing all right?" Temeraire leaned closer to her.

"No. Yes… I don't know," she muttered, her legs pulled up, her chin resting on her knees. Her eyes were distant and her lips slightly trembling.

"Is it something that the doctor said? Oh, do not even listen to it, Emily, what does he know about an aviator's duty to his dragon?"

"Nothing, I think," she replied, her voice barely a whisper.

Temeraire had no idea what had got into the girl – one minute she was on the verge of tears, the other minute she was smiling the most radiant smile ever, only to turn back into an emotional wreck once again. Not to mention that her complexion kept changing between pallor and blush on too regular a basis…

He had to find out what had happened to her, for something _was_ bothering her. Could it still be the fact that a couple of days earlier Laurence had turned her down? Could that rejection still be haunting her?

The next moment, however, the doctor emerged from the tent with a dismayed expression, supporting a shaky Laurence clad in his bloodstained shirt, and all Temeraire's intentions of questioning Emily flew out of his mind.

"Laurence, you are well!" he roared in delight, and had he not been afraid of hurting his captain, he would have reached out and snatched Laurence from the doctor's grip to smother him in an enthusiastic embrace. He managed to hold back and tentatively edged closer to gently nudge his captain with his muzzle. "Do you have a fever, Laurence?"

"No, my dear, I am doing quite well, if a bit tired," the man admitted, letting himself down into the crook of Temeraire's foreleg.

"Tired, eh?" the doctor waved. "I wanted to talk him out of getting up, but he wouldn't listen. Aviators," he added, rolling his eyes.

"I would appreciate it if you did not abuse my crew," Temeraire replied, "however I am grateful to you for patching up Laurence, so let us say that we are even."

Doctor Madison made a grimace at being addressed by the dragon. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Do me a favour, you great talking beast, and at least try to keep your captain out of trouble for a while."

"Yes, it would be best for all of us to return to the covert, do you not think so, Laurence?" Temeraire asked. "You are not strong enough to continue working here."

"Do not worry about me, my dear. We can continue working, and if I feel a bit tired, Emi… _Lieutenant Roland_ can take over the command for a while."

Surprised by Laurence's slip of the tongue, and even more surprised by his suddenly blush, Temeraire chanced a glance at Emily to see her standing upright, paler than ever, but with a determined glint in her eyes. "Yes, sir," she replied flatly. "You can count on me, sir."

"Are you aware that not even twenty-four hours have passed since you were shot?" the doctor snapped.

"Er… yes," Laurence nodded with a politely confused expression.

The doctor threw up his hands in defeat. "I always said you aviators were madmen! I wish I knew what my sister saw in one of you lot… eloping with an aviator, I ask you!"

"Oh, so that is your main problem with aviators," Temeraire perceived. "Believe me, not all of them are lacking morals. Laurence for example has vowed to be celibate and has so far wonderfully managed to keep himself to his decision."

"Temeraire…" Laurence hissed at him, his cheeks colouring an even deeper shade of purple.

"Oh, Laurence, you look bad. Are you sure you do not have a fever?"

"No, I just wish for some peace and quiet," his captain said through gritted teeth, then with some difficulty clambered to his feet and turned to the doctor. "I am very grateful for your help, sir. Without you I would undoubtedly be dead. Thank you very much."

"You're welcome," Madison accepted his outstretched hand. "Celibate, eh?" he added with a grin and amidst the snickers of the crewmembers, boarded the small dragon he had borrowed from the military outpost.

As soon as the doctor and his dragon shrank into a tiny dot on the horizon, Laurence turned to his crew. "Be so kind and find yourself something else to laugh at. Mr. Higgins," he addressed the young ensign, who stepped out from behind the back of the bulky Smith, trembling.

"Y…yes, sir?"

"You will take target lessons from Lieutenant Roland so that next time you decide to defend someone from a crocodile, you will not miss."

Higgins swallowed hard. "Yes, sir."

Laurence's expression softened a bit. "Thank you for trying to save me."

The boy's face brightened and he pulled himself upright, saluting. "You are most welcome, sir."

"I too thank you for trying to save _me_, Captain," Marian Digby smiled at Laurence, batting her eyelashes in his direction.

Temeraire once again cast a sideways glance at Emily to see her eyebrows knitted and lips pressed tightly together. Temeraire knew just as well as Emily must have known that ugly little Digby was no threat to Laurence's virtue, but jealousy was still hard to repress.

"Sir," Emily stepped closer, and Temeraire had no doubt that she had only spoken up to distract Laurence's attention from Marian, "I am honoured by the chance to take the command from time to time, but I must agree with Temeraire that it would be best for you to return to the covert. I am sure we could find another captain and dragon who would volunteer to complete our work here."

"I am with Lieutenant Roland on this matter, sir," Smith interjected. "You need your rest, you must've had a rough night."

For some reason both Laurence and Emily flushed, carefully avoiding each other's eyes; something that, in Temeraire's opinion, was worth exploring.

"Let us wait a couple of hours, shall we?" Laurence offered. "Currently I feel strong enough, but a bit of flying will surely tell whether I can manage longer on dragonback or not. Temeraire will take me for a flight now, and once we return, I shall tell you my decision."

No one could dispute this suggestion, and even if Emily insisted that Laurence take at least one of the ensigns with himself in case he felt sick aloft, the captain once again proved a hard nut to crack.

A few minutes later the two of them were airborne, Temeraire flying as smoothly and carefully as possible. "Are you sitting well, Laurence? Are you strapped in safe? Is it not uncomfortable? Is your wound not hurting? Do you have a fever? Are you not feeling dizzy? Or sick? Or…"

"Temeraire! I am no baby to pamper, please! I am feeling a bit weaker than usual, but not dizzy, nor feverish, nor sick. My wound hurts a bit, but not nearly as bad as in the evening. I think a good night's sleep must have worked wonders."

"_Sleep_?" Temeraire questioned, turning his head back as much as it was possible while carrying any member of his crew. "Do tell, if you spent the whole night sleeping, why did you blush so much just before we left the others?"

"Oh…" Laurence flushed once again, realising that Temeraire was referring to Smith's comment of him having a 'rough night'. "It was… just a dream. Probably the most peculiar dream I have ever had, but… still just a dream."

"Why was it so peculiar? Do tell me about it."

Laurence hesitated for a while, as though contemplating whether it was proper to talk. Finally, with a deep sigh and in a rather uncertain voice, he began to speak. "It was not _that_ peculiar… After all, every young boy and even sometimes grown men tend to have dreams like that, but this one just felt… so real."

"Real? In what respect? And what kind of a dream is that young boys and grown men both tend to have?" Temeraire asked, clueless. "I usually dream of jewellery… or beating up Lien. Or both, beating up Lien while wearing lots of jewellery. But sometimes… I just dream of going back to England and seeing Maximus and Lily…" he added, his head drooping a bit, "and my daughter, Gwendolyn. I have never even met her…"

Laurence gently patted his dragon's neck. "I too dream of England, more often than you would imagine. I miss it like hell… the lakes, the medieval castles, the green hills speckled with sheep…"

"Yum," Temeraire commented.

"But I miss my mother most," Laurence sighed. "I did not even have a chance to say good-bye and I shall never see her again."

Craning his neck, Temeraire saw that his captain's eyes were watering. "I too miss my mother… and Mei. And well… even Iskierka, though she is horribly irritating. But I beg you, Laurence, let us not talk about sad things now, it does not help you heal. Tell me instead of your latest dream, the sort that boys and men both tend to have."

Laurence repressed a chuckle, and Temeraire saw that the man's cheeks were redder than the setting sun.

"It was that sort of dream in which men have… relations with women."

"Oh, really? How curious, I have never dreamed of giving eggs…"

"Well, in these dreams… you do not really give eggs, or at least, you do not have relations with the purpose of giving eggs, just… It comes from your dormant desires, I think," Laurence replied, his eyes fixed on horizon, not meeting Temeraire's, as if he were too ashamed to look his dragon in the eye.

"And pray tell, who was the subject of your dormant desires?"

Laurence bit into his lower lip, once again hesitant.

"Oh, you need not even tell. It was Emily, was it not?"

"I think…" the captain murmured, his cheeks still pink. "I am not entirely sure. The dream was rather… hazy… but I think it was her."

"If it were that hazy, how come it felt so real?" Temeraire enquired.

Laurence shook his head. "I do not know. The whole thing was so… contradictory. Hazy but real, passionate but… _innocent._" He uttered the last word so quietly that Temeraire barely managed to catch it.

"How could it be innocent, if it was about a… _sinful thought_?" the dragon asked, although he still did not see why lust should be called a sin.

"It is hard to explain…" Laurence said, still sounding somewhat reluctant to address the topic. "Usually when you have a dream like that, it is anything but innocent. This one was… different. There was some tentativeness in it… and it was the first time I have had such a dream in which it was not me making love to a woman, but her… making love to me. And it was… _sweet_, there is no other word for it."

Temeraire once again glanced at this captain to see a beatific smile on his face, not unlike the one Emily had worn before she had fallen asleep.

Yes, Temeraire decided, he definitely had to question the girl.

"But I beg you, let us not dwell on it," Laurence spoke up, dragging himself back to reality, "it was after all… just a dream. Or… oh-oh…"

"What 'oh-oh'?"

"I have just realised how lucky I was to have had _Gordon _keep watch over me…"

"Why?" Temeraire asked, slightly confused.

"Well," Laurence bit into his lower lip, "it is very fortunate that it was a fifty-year-old man who saw me having… _those dreams _last night, and not one of the youngsters, because if it _were_ the young ones, then any future reprimand concerning their lack of morals would hold no water with them, coming from me... And just to think that it could have been a _woman_ keeping watch over me… O God…"

Temeraire knew even without looking that his captain had turned ruby red once again. He hated having to break it to Laurence that it had been Emily Roland who first kept watch by his 'sickbed', but what had to be done, had to be done. "Well, Laurence, you must know that… Laurence?"

The captain had chosen that very moment to let out a sharp hiss and clutch at his injured shoulder.

"Laurence, are you all right?"

"Not really…" the man moaned, his eyes squeezed shut. "Just go back… to the camp, will you?"

"It seems to me that we are returning to the covert, after all," Temeraire said in a half-worried, half-mocking tone.

"Yes, yes, we are," Laurence panted, leaning forward in the harness, apparently not being able to keep himself upright, "just do not give me this 'I told you so' look!"

oOo

Upon returning to the covert of Sydney, with both the captain and the first lieutenant confined to their beds, Emily was given full command of Temeraire's crew. Regulus and Captain Bowles took it on themselves to continue the land clearing work deep in the continent that Temeraire's crew had had to give up, and Temeraire was assigned to the construction works of several town houses, carrying construction material, which the dragon complainingly likened to being used as a stupid pack-animal. Emily's heart went out to the poor creature who, with his remarkable intelligence and well-honed battle skills, definitely deserved better than this. Her heart bled even more for her captain, especially the first few days, having to see him reclining on crumpled pillows, either pale with blood-loss or red with fever.

And she had to see him every evening, having to report to him about the day's events and having to pass on Temeraire's complaints about both their current assignment and the way he missed his captain.

"Mr. Roland," Laurence told her the evening of the fourth day after he had been shot, "I might be asking too much of you, as you have already taken it on yourself to command Temeraire and the crew in duty hours, but… I would like to ask you one more favour."

"Anything, sir," she replied, her voice trembling. She knew there was possibly nothing she would not do for him, especially with her guilty conscience that badly needed soothing. For her conscience had not for a moment left her any peace since that fateful night. Not that she regretted lying with him, for it had been beautiful in its own strange way, but she could not escape the thought that perhaps her sinful, selfish actions had worsened his condition. Sometimes, for fleeting minutes she managed to convince herself that he had been doing perfectly well upon leaving the tent with Doctor Madison and it had been only _his_ stubborn insistence on flying with Temeraire that had landed him in sickbed; but those moments free of guilt never lasted long.

Laurence gave her a vague smile and pointed at a book on his bedside table. "Would you please take this and read out to Temeraire? I am sure he would appreciate it a lot, with all the boredom he has to suffer from the construction works these days… and with all the worries my condition must be causing him..."

"I am not as good at reading out as you are, sir," Emily admitted reluctantly. She still vividly recalled when Temeraire had had to correct the text she had been trying to read out, for she had stammered so badly. Her reading skills had improved a lot since then, mostly thanks to her captain's insistence on her education, but she knew she would never read and write as fluently as a proper young lady at her age should. Then again, had she ever been a proper young lady?, she thought bitterly. Certainly not. A proper young lady would not only not fly on dragons and give commands to _men_, but would most definitely not use an unfortunate, unconscious man for her own vile ends.

She stiffened when Laurence reached out and gently squeezed her hand. "I have full trust in your reading skills, Lieutenant Roland," he said, making her heart sink into her stomach. She so did not deserve such words from him! Trust?! She deserved anything but his trust after she had so shamelessly betrayed him!

Nodding mutely, she pulled her hand out of his and took the book from the bedside table. How she would have loved to remain standing there, their hands locked… but she knew well enough that his taking her hand was not out of affection for her, but out of affection for Temeraire, for whose sake Laurence had tried to convince her into taking the book.

"I shall read out to him, sir, but only if you promise me that in a couple of days you will take it over."

"I promise to be a good boy and get well quick. And thank you, Emily."

She had already turned away from him, heading for the door, but stopped in her stride upon hearing her Christian name. Clutching the book to her chest, she closed her eyes and her lips formed a silent 'thank you'. Turning around, she gave him a vague smile. "You are most welcome, sir."

oOo

"That nymph Calypso was not really nice," Temeraire opined once they had finished a chapter from Homer's _Odyssey_. "Keeping that poor Odysseus on her island against his will, and forcing herself on him… how despicable."

Emily bit into her lower lip, and in the lantern's light Temeraire was sure he saw tears welling up in her eyes.

"Have I said something wrong?" he asked, gently nudging her with his nose.

"Oh, no," she shook her head, sniffing. "You are completely right, Temeraire. What Calypso did was indeed despicable. Even… even if she did it out of love."

"But Odysseus was a married man who loved his wife Penelope," the dragon said with an air of innocence. "Laurence is not married, nor has he promised his heart to anyone…"

Emily's eyes flew wide open as she looked up at him. "What… what are you talking about? We were just… discussing _Odyssey_. That has nothing to do with Laurence. Nothing."

"Oh, and surely nothing happened between you and him four nights ago…?" Temeraire gave her a meaningful glance.

"I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about," she snapped, jumping to her feet. "I must be off, I am tired. If Laurence is not feeling up to it tomorrow, I shall come back and read out to you again, but only if you promise me to not ask… _weird _questions!"

Temeraire sighed. Humans were so unreasonable… especially where emotions were concerned. "Are we not accomplices, then?" he asked in as small a voice as a dragon of nearly twenty tons could manage, feeling slightly hurt.

Emily's lips trembled. "I am sorry, Temeraire… we may be accomplices… some time. But right now I do not feel ready for it… I do not feel ready for anything. Will you please excuse me now?"

Temeraire inclined his head. "Of course, good night, Emily. And just to set your mind at ease… I shall for the time being leave Laurence in the belief that it was Gordon keeping watch over him all night."

Emily let out a sigh of defeat. "I am… most thankful to you. Good night, Temeraire."

oOo

The next few weeks were so busy for Temeraire and the crew that Emily simply did not have time to dwell on her guilt, at least not by day, for which she was almost grateful. But only almost, because her increased amount of duties always reminded her that the captain was still not healthy enough to take back the command, not to mention that at night pangs of remorse attacked with a frightening fervour. She often cried herself to sleep, her soul in a hopeless turmoil – she felt guilty beyond imagination, and yet, some part of her heart did not regret what she had done.

By the end of November, both Laurence and Allen had been allowed to leave their sickbeds, but the covert physician had strictly forbidden them to start working yet. Laurence was already strong enough to join the crew for meals and take over reading out to Temeraire in the evenings, so Emily was at least exempted from having awkward evening sessions with the dragon.

She had, however, every night to report to her captain, and whenever she did so, she caught herself scanning his features for any sign of discontent with her, but she found none; he was as polite with her as ever. Judging by his treating her with respect, if a somewhat cold sort of respect, Temeraire must have kept his promise and not told Laurence anything of what he was suspecting. Thankfully he had not questioned Emily further either. But how long would it carry on like this?, Emily wondered. Weeks? Months? Would she _have_ months to keep Temeraire in the dark – or _almost dark_?

Her eyes involuntarily flitted to the sizeable calendar hung on the wall of the covert dining room – it was the 5th December. Almost a month had passed since the accident, and, she realised, her period was two weeks overdue.

"Why are you staring at that poor calendar as though you were trying to set it on fire with your eyes?" Allen, freshly recovered, asked with a grin. "I remember Iskierka looking at things like that before she set them on fire…"

Emily gulped. "Nothing. I was just… counting the days left till Christmas."

"Are you all right?" he asked, knitting his eyebrows. "You're as white as a sheet."

"Yes, I am perfectly all right, thank you," she dismissed him with a wave of her hand and tried to force herself to be calm, while her heart was hammering against her ribcage. She had not even noticed how quick time had passed… _Two weeks_, she felt her inners squirm. _Two weeks don't mean anything yet_. And still, she could not help but hope: hope that sacrificing her good conscience had paid off at least. But two weeks really did not mean anything. Not yet, anyway.

oOo

"Let us drink to Lieutenant Roland who has proved to be an able leader, and who, I am sure, will never put Excidium to shame," Laurence lifted his glass at the dinner table, all members of his crew save Emily following his example. It was less than a week before Christmas, and the first day Laurence had been allowed by the covert's doctor to take back the command of Temeraire.

Blushing to the roots of her sandy hair, Emily fingered her own glass; ashamed to think that she did not deserve a single word of the praise she had just received.

The dark red port in her glass smelled nauseating and her head felt unusually heavy, even though she had not even tasted the wine yet. She had been working so hard for the past six weeks that she had not even had time to realise how exhausted she had become. Now that the captain was once again healthy and back in action, she finally allowed herself to admit that she had grown tired. Probably more tired than she had ever been.

Emily excused herself from the crew, leaving her glass untouched, and, accompanied by a worried glance from Laurence, withdrew to her room.

She fell asleep knowing that her pangs of remorse should have abated by now since the captain was fit as a fiddle, but her conscience was not so easily soothed. Every appreciating smile she received from him, all the acknowledgements of her leadership skills and every single 'thank you' issuing from his lips felt like a stab in the heart, while every glance at the calendar in the dining room was like balm to her soul, a glowing ember of hope that burned stronger and stronger with every passing day.

o

"Roland! Hey, Roland!"

"Wha…?" she mumbled, barely feeling strong enough to open her eyes. She squinted blearily up at Allen, surprised to find it was morning already – it seemed as though the dinner with Captain Laurence praising her had taken place mere minutes earlier. "Whaddayawant?"

"It's nine o' clock, Roland. The captain sent me to find out what has detained you."

"_Nine?_" she sat bolt upright, only to wish she had not done so. The room spun around her, the streaks of sunlight coming through the window mercilessly swayed before her eyes. How come she had not woken up earlier? She tended to sleep in on Sundays, but she had never overslept on a day of duty!

Emily squeezed her eyes shut, commanding the room and the streaks of sunlight to stop spinning, but neither the room nor the sunrays obeyed her silent order. Next thing she knew, she was on her knees on the floor, retching into the chamber pot, Allen holding her forehead in the process.

"I'm sorry," she croaked, seeing that she had somehow managed to dirty one sleeve of Allen's coat. "It seems… I haven't been able to keep my promise of not throwing up on you again."

The young man shook his head with a chuckle. "I just hope you haven't been drinking again."

"Not a sip," she replied, wiping her mouth in a handkerchief. "I have a much better excuse for vomiting now." Seeing Allen's confused expression, she could not help but let a delighted grin spread on her face. "I think I'm pregnant."

oOo

**A/N: comments would be much appreciated. :)**


	6. A Gentleman's Duty

**A/N: thanks for the reviews, people. :)**

**Chapter 6**

**A Gentleman's Duty**

"Pregnant?" Allen's mouth dropped open.

"Yes," Emily shrugged. "Why are you so surprised?"

"I'm not… bloody hell, Roland! Of course I _am_ surprised, who wouldn't be? Does the captain know at all?"

Emily flinched. Surely Allen had not guessed the father's identity? "Why… why would he need to know?"

"Why? Because you're his second lieutenant, that's why! And surely he wouldn't want to risk your health or that of the baby by expecting you to come along with us and work as though nothing happened!"

Emily began to panic. "Heavens, Allen, do not even talk like that! For one, I am not a hundred percent sure yet that I'm pregnant, and I do not wish to disclose the news to the captain or anyone else before I am completely sure; and even when everyone knows it, I intend to continue working for a while. I'm not a piece of china, I do not break."

"You might not… but the baby might. You surely don't want to lose it… or… _do you_?"

Emily was taken aback by the mere suggestion. "I'm not like Bri… I'm not a murderous slut, and I most definitely want this child!" she lashed out at him, jumping to her feet. For a second she swayed, still dizzy, but she managed to clutch at the bedpost and pull herself upright, her eyes sending lightning bolts at her crewmate. "It is for Excidium's sake, if you want to know. And I will not listen to insinuations like that, Mr. Allen!"

"Okay, okay, sorry!" the young man held up a placating hand. "Of course you're not like… who did you mention?"

"No one," Emily swallowed hard, furious at herself for almost having divulged Laurence's painful little secret. She was quite sure that no one besides Temeraire, herself and perhaps Tharkay knew the true story of Brianna Johnson, and since Tharkay had departed a few years earlier, now only she and Temeraire were in on the secret. She could not allow some stupid slip of the tongue to give occasion for rumours and possibly open long-healed wounds. _If _those wounds had healed at all, of which Emily was not entirely convinced.

Allen knitted his eyebrows, but decided not to pry. "Anyway, I suggest if you want to keep the baby a secret for the time being, get dressed quick and join us on the dragon grounds in five minutes, or the captain will surely ask questions."

Emily nodded. "Will _you_ keep it a secret?"

"Yes. I will," the young man sighed. "But only if you promise me not to overwork."

Emily gave his crewmate a grateful smile. "Thanks, Allen. I promise. I need this baby. _Excidium_ needs this baby. Please pass on my deepest apologies to the captain and tell him I shall be down in five minutes. Ten at most."

Still feeling a bit dizzy and nauseous, Emily changed into her suit, pulled on her boots and washed her face. Upon trying to comb her hair before the tiny mirror, she was forced to examine her reflection – her complexion was paler than ever, there were dark shadows under her eyes, but an almost unearthly smile graced her lips. Stupid, stupid Allen, thinking she would in any way endanger the child she had worked and endured so much to have…! For no matter what she had told Allen in order to gain some time before having to tell the whole crew, she was already absolutely sure of her condition. The past few weeks she had only been suspecting it, the calendar a shining beacon of hope, but now, having had her first bout of morning sickness, she no longer had any doubt. Her captain had given her a baby, bless him… if only she could tell him. If only…

Her mirror image wept with joy and despair, pride and shame, and it took Emily several seconds to realise that she too, was crying. Stifling a small laugh, she wiped her tears and ran a hand across her belly. _Thank you, Will. Thank you._

oOo

Laurence did not know what to make of Emily's delay – so far she had always been on time for duty, the only occasion he had seen her late from anywhere or anything had been that fateful Sunday service almost seven weeks earlier. Then again, she had had drunk a lot the evening before that, so no wonder she had overslept. Even the weeks following his accident, when Laurence had already been strong enough to attend the Sunday services, Emily always appeared for them on time, surprising her captain – not with being on time, but with appearing at all. On these occasions she had respected his earlier request and sat as far from him as possible, but he could not help but wish that at least once or twice there would be no other vacant place in the church but in 'his' pew, leaving her no other choice but to sit next to him… However, Sunday services were never popular enough not to leave enough vacant places for Emily to choose from.

Laurence had also wondered why his second lieutenant had decided to become a church goer in the first place – surely not because he had once told her he would applaud for her if she did…? He, for one, had been driven to the church by his guilty conscience. Could Emily be in a similar situation? If yes, why? Surely not because she had once, only once, dressed up as a scarlet woman to seduce him?

In spite of himself, Laurence felt an increasing worry for her.

In the weeks of his bed confinement he had had time to think of his less than fatherly feelings towards Emily, and had come to the conclusion that he had done the right thing in keeping his distance. Every time she had come to report to him had been the highlight of his day; he had secretly been waiting for her visits from early morning till finally she arrived in the evening, but when she was there, he could not bring himself to do anything but converse with her politely, and strictly about duty.

In his feverish hours her lovely image wearing the frilly, crème coloured dress had often appeared before his eyes, making him wish he had not turned her down, but as soon as his temperature dropped a bit, he always came to realise that he had taken the only sensible and proper course of action.

Now, even without knowing what had happened to her, he reluctantly admitted to himself that his worries for her were much deeper than his worries had been for any of his earlier lieutenants, Allen's head injury and even Granby's chest wound aboard the _Allegiance _included.

Laurence shook his head, banishing the disconcerting thoughts from his mind, directing his attention back to the present and Emily's curious absence. She had not drunk a single sip of wine the previous evening, he had been watching her and seen that she had not, therefore she could not be having a hangover. What else could have delayed her then?

"Well, Mr. Allen? Where is Mr. Roland?" he questioned the young man upon his arrival.

"She just… overslept, sir. She asked me to tell you she shall be here in about five minutes. She begs your pardon, but I expect she will do that in person as well, once she gets here."

Heaving a sigh or relief, Laurence nodded and climbed into Temeraire's offered claws to be deposited on the dragon's back.

In less than ten minutes, Emily arrived, her face pale but her eyes shining brighter than ever – perhaps the only time he had seen her so pleased had been when she had received her first silk dress and worn it to the charity party held for the promotion of dragon welfare. Laurence did not know why this particular memory had flashed into his mind, but just a second later the image of the child Emily wearing her elegant little dress was replaced by the adult Emily in her deep-cleavaged, frilly attire that she had worn to the church, and Laurence was forced to look away, willing himself not to blush. Staring at a spot over her head, he spoke up, "I hope you have a good enough excuse for your absence, Mr. Roland. I should not like to withdraw the praise of yesterday evening."

"I felt a bit sick, sir," she replied. Laurence finally chanced a glance at her again, only to see a peculiar smile on her face to match the brightness of her eyes – a smile such as he had never seen her wearing. There was a beatific quality to that smile, something secretive, and something… directed at him. Or was he just imagining things?

"I expect I must have eaten a bit too much of the Yorkshire pudding they gave us for dinner," Emily carried on. "I am truly sorry for having caused any inconvenience."

Laurence inclined his head. "If you have an upset stomach, I hope you do not mind missing today's breakfast, Mr. Roland. We have no time to waste for satisfying the appetites of latecomers."

"Of course I do not mind, sir," Emily said, her chin put out. "I would only throw it back up again, I fear. Better for me to miss it completely."

"Good," Laurence replied, his mouth twitching upon hearing a painful rumble issuing from Emily's stomach. "Aboard, Mr. Roland, if you please."

oOo

The next morning Temeraire spotted Emily wandering around the covert grounds well before breakfast hours, her face paler than the previous morning, her cheeks hollow.

Temeraire sidled closer to the edge of the dragon grounds, as far from the rest of the dragons as possible, and called out to her. Emily, with a slightly confused expression, approached him.

"You look a fright."

"Thanks," she replied with a half-smile.

"I am not joking, you seem to be ill. And how come you are up so early? It is barely past sunrise. Or were you just too afraid to be late for the crew assembly again, and decided to wake up in time, but accidentally woke up too early?"

"No," she shook her head with a chuckle, and Temeraire wondered how the eyes of a girl looking so sick could sparkle like that… he had seen his fellow dragons sick, many of them, and their eyes had completely lost their gleam. "It's just that I am having problems with my stomach again, and it woke me earlier than it should have."

"Did it grumble so nastily that you could not sleep?"

"No, it sent back my dinner so nastily that I could not sleep," she replied, looking too cheerful for someone who had just thrown up.

"Oh. But if you did not get to have breakfast yesterday and even your dinner came back now, then there is nothing left in you, you must be starving!" Temeraire said with dismay. "I surely would be starving in your place if the cow I had for dinner had come back…"

"Pray do not worry about me, I managed to keep my lunch down. At least… I think I have not been reacquainted with_ that_.

A moment of silence followed, then Temeraire asked all of a sudden, "Emily… are you still angry with me?"

"Why would I be?" the girl frowned up at him.

"Because… I think I was too straightforward when we were reading the _Odyssey_. But you must know that I just wanted the best for you and Laurence. Because I honestly believe you two would be nice together."

Emily let out a sigh. "Do not worry, I am not angry with you."

"Then can we be accomplices again?" Temeraire asked hopefully. "I truly wish to help you win Laurence's heart."

"I fear I have never had a chance to win that," Emily waved dismissively, the spark in her eyes waning. "I never even hoped for that."

"Not even when you asked him to give you an egg?"

"Well," she presented the dragon with a crooked grin, "his _heart_ was not exactly the body part I desired at that time… And even if I should desire it, I am not likely to receive it, ever. He does not love me."

"Excuse me, but I think you are gravely mistaken," Temeraire replied.

"Oh, please," Emily rolled her eyes, "the fact that he has sinful thoughts about me from time to time does not mean that he loves me, even though, believe me, nothing would make me happier." Her shoulders sagged and she shook her head dejectedly. "I have been brought up to be a realist. I have not managed to inherit much from my mother, but _this_ at least I have. And as a realist, I know what it is sensible to hope for, and what isn't. I have been chasing dreams too long, Temeraire," she reached out to stroke his muzzle. "I am fed up with it. My past has been that of a little girl dreaming of her captain… But I have grown up."

"Does that mean," Temeraire said, his ruff drooping, "that you do not wish to pursue Laurence any longer?"

Emily gave him a sad little smile, the spark in her eyes that had almost completely been extinguished, now seemed somewhat brighter again. "I do not need to."

"Why not?" The dragon blinked at her. Humans could be so confusing…

Looking away from him, as though she felt coy all of a sudden, Emily said, "Because I have already received what I wanted."

"Oh," Temeraire gasped, "the egg?"

"Yes. The egg."

For a long moment Temeraire hesitated, trying to digest the information. "Did… did Laurence give you the egg?" he asked finally.

Emily nodded mutely.

"Am I right in thinking that he does not know? Neither that you _are_ having an egg, nor that it was _him _who gave it to you?"

Two nods from Emily.

"Oh, so I _was_ right about that night after all!" Temeraire exclaimed, only to earn a "Shhh!" from the girl.

"All right, all right, I am sorry, I was just too excited," he said, lowering his voice.

Emily once again gave him a lopsided grin. "You know what the problem is with you? You are way too clever."

"I know."

"And modest too."

With an air of innocence, Temeraire began polishing his breastplate. "So, when will you tell him?"

"Never."

The dragon stared at her with shock. "Why?"

"Because… because he isn't supposed to know."

"But why?" Temeraire pressed. "You must remember how broken he was after that tramp Brianna killed that poor egg of theirs… I am sure he would be delighted to know that someone is going to have an egg from him after all… especially if that someone is _you_."

"Oh, Temeraire, please!" Emily threw up her hands. "He might be delighted to have given an egg to someone… _anyone_ else, but surely not me, because… because…"

"Because?"

"Because I'm just as much of a tramp as Brianna is!" Emily snapped.

"But you are not, what are you talking about?" Temeraire asked, once again confused by human behaviour.

Emily nervously ran her hands through her sandy locks, her whole body trembling. "_I _was nymph Calypso, do you understand? I forced myself on him. Surely, he would never forgive me for that… He has not loved me so far, and should he find out, he would not only not love me, he would downright despise me. I do not want that, Temeraire! You must understand that I cannot risk that…"

"Honestly, I do not think Laurence would ever despise you, but… you are right, perhaps we should not risk it," Temeraire said contemplatively. "Laurence has a huge heart, but also a very strong sense of propriety… and he does not condone any kind of deceit." HeTemeraire bent his head on his forelegs, feeling disheartened. He so would have liked to help… "But perhaps… perhaps he _would_ forgive you easier than he would anyone else…"

"Why would he?" she sighed, dropping herself on a rock.

"Because you are you. You may insist that you do not believe he loves you, but you have to admit at least that you mean a lot to him. You must have felt that from an early age on."

"Oh, you mean the forced calculus lessons?" Emily snorted. "He gave those to Dyer too. He made no exceptions with me. He never treated me differently from anyone else."

"But at least he _thought_ differently of you. Why, he told me about a dream in which… oh, but I perhaps should not tell you that…"

"What dream?" Emily's eyes widened.

"Well…" Temeraire began drawing symbols into the dirt, "he told me about a most peculiar dream he had the night after he was shot…" Sending a sideways glance at Emily, he contentedly established that he had managed to pique her interest and also made her blush. "In that dream someone… _someone _was making love to him. He told me he thought it was you, but he was not sure, and…" he added conspiratorially, "he said it was the sweetest lovemaking he had ever had in a dream, because it was so… _innocent_."

"Innocent?" she breathed.

"Oh, yes," Temeraire nodded. "Though in all honesty, I cannot imagine how siring could be innocent, at least I have never had it that way… but anyway, he certainly thinks it was just a dream, and I never told him I thought it was not, but the main point is that he thinks his dream with you making love to him was more special than his similar dreams with other women. Therefore, you _are_ special to him, you cannot even debate that." With an air he thought to be peremptory, Temeraire sat up on his haunches. "So, what do you say?"

"Uh… I'm speechless," Emily flushed.

"But will you tell him now?"

"No, I will not," she shook her head. "And I beg you not to tell him either."

"You are no longer my commander," he reminded her in a somewhat caustic tone.

"It was not an order," Emily sighed, "just a request. Surely you do not want to ruin Laurence's life, you do not want him be saddled with someone he does not love…"

"You are talking as though you thought yourself to be a burden."

"Because that is what I would be to him! And I do not want to be! I shall not force myself on a man who does not love me and who has vowed to remain celibate…"

"But you have already done so once…" Temeraire pointed out.

"What he does not know, does not hurt him. And I do not want to hurt him," Emily hung her head. "Listen, Temeraire… I might tell him… someday. Just not yet. Please, let me make this decision myself. It is, after all, about my life. My body. My egg."

With a sigh, Temeraire sank fully back onto his belly, curling his tail around himself. "All right, Emily, but pray, hurry with that decision. I want to see Laurence happy at last!"

Emily replied with an uncertain, jerky nod just as her stomach gave an almighty rumble. "I think the egg is hungry. And so am I. Let us wish my breakfast will stay down this time. I've got to go, Temeraire."

"_Bon appétit_, Emily. Oh, and Emily…"

"Yes?"

"You have to admit you were extremely lucky. I did not manage to give an egg to any females for over a year, and believe me, I tried to sire at least fifty times. Either you were lucky, or Laurence was very good to give you an egg at only one go…"

Emily raised an eyebrow at him playfully. "Who said it was only one go?"

oOo

_Dear Mother,_

_I am happy to announce that the task is at least partly accomplished. I am nearly two months pregnant, by the time you receive this letter, I might already have given birth. Let us wish for a girl._

_Happy New Year!_

_Love,_

_Emily_

_December 30, 1815_

Emily stared at the short letter, tears welling up in her eyes. How she longed to tell more, how she longed to write she was expecting Laurence's baby! How she would have liked to pour her heart out to her mother, tell her how deliriously happy and how utterly sad she was feeling at the same time…

But she knew she could not. On the one hand, her mother would not approve of her choice of mate and would probably even insinuate that it had been poor Laurence who seduced her; on the other hand, if her mother found out who the father was, there was no way Laurence would not find out sooner or later, probably from an angry letter sent to him by Jane herself.

Emily wiped her eyes and folded the letter, banishing any temptation that might spur her to add the postscript _'By the way, it is Laurence's'_, also banishing the thought that sooner or later she would have to tell her captain herself. Tell him, but of course not the fact that he was the father, merely the fact that she was pregnant. She had already noticed him giving her funny glances whenever a bout of sickness had come over her – she could not keep her condition a secret from him much longer. And she already knew what she would tell him if he questioned her about the father's identity. A blatant lie.

Emily hated having to lie, but knew there was no other way. She would protect Laurence's honour – or what was left of it – at any costs. Besides, she knew him enough to be sure that if he ever found out, she could expect two reactions from him: firstly, anger at having been used and lied to, secondly, an instant marriage proposal.

Emily did not wish for either of them. She did not want him to detest her for what she had done but marry her despite his aversion. She had meant it when she told Temeraire that she did not want to be a burden.

With a sigh, Emily sealed the envelope to be sent aboard the _Allegiance_ leaving port in two days.

oOo

Once again, she jumped up from the ground, dropping her sandwich, and bolted for a nearby bush. For the third time that week, and for at least the fifteenth time in the last three weeks. Her bouts of sickness usually attacked during the course of their morning assignments; this was the first time it had occurred during the lunch break. With every passing day she looked thinner and paler and Laurence found himself wondering why he had not thought of talking to her earlier. Her usually muttered 'just a bit of an upset stomach' had satisfied him at first, but three weeks of seeing his lieutenant run for bushes and hearing her retch had been enough.

As Emily stumbled out of the shrubbery, wiping her mouth in a handkerchief, Laurence put down his own sandwich and rose to his feet. "Mr. Roland, a word, if you please."

Her eyes widening, she nodded and followed him out of the makeshift camp.

When they had put at least two hundred yards between themselves and the rest of the crew, he rounded on her. "I have been watching you, Mr. Roland. For weeks you have been ill and you have tried to feed me explanations of merely having an upset stomach. You managed to fool me at first, but you no longer can. There is no upset stomach that needs more than three weeks to heal, so, be so kind and let me know why you have tried to conceal your illness."

"My… illness?" she frowned up on him.

"Mr. Roland, pray do not take me for a fool, at least, not any longer," he sighed, folding his hands behind his back. "You are ill, there is no doubt of that. I understand that for weeks you have been trying to pass the hard tasks on to the lesser officers, something you had never done before. You tried to be subtle about it, but I have heard their murmurs of complaint. If you are indeed so very sick, which I seriously believe you are, I suggest you visit a physician. You will naturally be exempted from work, but pray do not give the others a cause for complaint."

"Yes, sir," she nodded, her face serious. "I shall try to not give them any more reason for complaint."

"That is not what I meant," Laurence rolled his eyes, "at least, that is not the main point. Emily," he continued, not even noticing he had switched to her Christian name, "I am concerned about your health. I beg you to go and visit a doctor."

She drew herself upright and took a deep breath. "I shall not need a doctor, at least not for another six and a half months, sir."

Laurence knitted his eyebrows, trying to process what she had just said. _Six and a half months… constant vomiting… avoiding heavy physical work…_ "Emily," he breathed, all the blood running out of his face, "you are… you are…"

"With child, sir, yes," she nodded. "I am sorry to not have told you sooner, but I wanted to be sure about it before I disclosed it. You must understand that many women lose their babies in the first two or three months of their pregnancies, therefore it is most unfortunate to talk about it before it is sure the baby will be born at all."

"Oh," was all he managed to comment, his eyes wide, scanning her features. Her pale face held almost no emotions; she must have inherited her mother's talent at keeping her cool head in the most dire situations. He, on the other hand, felt a torrent of feelings wash over him, and all of them unwelcome – worry at possibly losing his lieutenant, anger at having been kept in the dark, and strongest of all: jealousy of the unknown man who had fathered her child.

He was overwhelmed – overwhelmed by the intensity with which the green-eyed monster attacked him. He knew he was supposed to be feeling relieved that Emily had apparently managed to find herself a 'nice young man' for the task of breeding, but at that moment Laurence could not imagine any young man nice enough for her.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he asked, "Does the father know?"

Emily's lips twitched for a second, the shadow of uncertainty flashing across her face, but she quickly regained her composure. "No, sir. And I prefer he does not find out, either."

"Why not?"

"Because I do not want to burden him with it," she shrugged, her features completely straight, giving him the impression that he was talking to a younger and prettier version of Jane Roland, the epitome of pragmatism.

"A child is never supposed to be thought of as a burden…" Laurence heaved a sigh, the painful knowledge that _his_ child had been a burden for Brianna clenching at his heart. "I am sure any man would be happy to know you are expecting his baby…"

"Oh, surely not him," Emily waved. "You know, sir, sailors do not belong to the family sort of men."

"A sailor?" he choked.

For some reason she looked away, not meeting his eyes as she said, "Yes."

"And… does that sailor have a name?"

"Well… some… Porter. Yes, I think James Porter," Emily made a grimace.

"You… _think_?" Laurence's eyes widened. "Are you not sure?"

"No, not really," she shook her head. "It was a one night stand, I am not even sure _he_ remembers _my_ name."

In spite of himself Laurence felt his cheeks flush. Emily truly was a Roland, speaking so openly about the most intimate matters… "Well," he cleared his throat and crossed his arms, trying to convey as much determination as he did not feel at the moment, "he will, once you tell him."

"But I shan't tell him. Because I can't."

"Why not?"

"Oh, let's see, because the _Allegiance_ sailed off two weeks ago?" Emily asked in a mocking voice.

Laurence was taken aback by her brazenness, as she had been anything but polite to him so far, with the only exception of her shameless proposal. Now it felt as though years had passed since that fateful Sunday, not a mere ten weeks. Her words _'I do not wish to bear a child by anyone else' _seemed like coming from a dream – a dream that crumbled like an old painting now, tainted by the knowledge that she had lain with another man, and a sailor at that!

Laurence suddenly caught himself despising his once beloved Navy and everything to do with it. But he could and would not show his disgust of the whole situation, not in front of Emily…

"Well, Mr. Roland," he straightened his back, "from this day on you will be exempted from your duties as lieutenant…"

"But sir!" she interrupted, only to be hushed by a wave of his hand.

"Let me continue." Under normal circumstances Laurence would have given detention to any officer of his for having interrupted him in such an impudent fashion, but there was an exception to every rule, and Emily Roland more often than not proved to be an exception to Laurence's rules. "You may certainly remain on the crew, but you will be placed temporarily in the ground crew. I am sure Marian Digby will be happy to have a helping hand in mending harnesses. You will naturally have your place and rank back once the child is born. Unless, of course, you wish to play full time mother."

"Never, sir!" she blurted out. "I mean, of course I would like my rank and place back, as soon as possible, I shan't shut myself into the nursery!"

"Good," he nodded, trying to look and sound as impassive as possible, although his inners were trembling. He could not help but feel dismayed at the way female aviators thought of motherhood, Catherine Harcourt being the worst example of that. Poor baby Riley had not seen his mother more than a dozen times in the first year of his life, and even less frequently thereafter, if Laurence could believe what Tom wrote him from time to time.

For some reason he could not imagine Emily as careless a mother as Catherine had been, especially with no Napoleon breathing down their necks… and yet, when he glanced at her, he established that her face still revealed no emotions – none for the child, none for the child's father, none for her own shameful predicament. But what could he expect? She was, after all, Jane Roland's daughter, and if anyone was, then Jane was certainly a master of hiding her emotions, always supposing she had any of the deeper sort in the first place.

Then again, Laurence reminded himself, he _had_ seen Emily cry, on more than one occasion. She had cried in the covert grounds before the battle of Dover, she had cried when Morgan died, and she had cried upon hearing his rejection. He could certainly claim that in the first two cases she had been a child and children tended to be weepy, but she had been an adult when he had turned her down. How come she seemed so emotionless now? Had she been probably… steeling herself for this conversation? Surely she had not expected him to turn her request down all those months ago, and the unexpected rejection had brought tears to her eyes, but she must have been expecting _this _conversation, and the Roland in her had obviously prevailed.

With a slight inclination of his head, Laurence began walking back towards the camp. "Tonight, at dinner, I shall tell the crew. Until then, you are allowed to pass any hard task to the ensigns. I do not wish to endanger you or the child."

She quickly caught up with his stride, and, not even looking at him, replied in a flat voice, "Thank you, sir. I knew you would understand."

oOo

But the truth was that Laurence did not understand it at all. After dinner, when he sat down by Temeraire's leg with the _Aeneid_, the dragon recently having taken a liking to ancient mythology, he seemed distracted and sad. Even more so than he had looked after he and Emily returned to the camp after the lunch break.

Judging by his captain's expression in the camp, Temeraire had drawn the conclusion that Emily had told him the truth – or at least, part of it. Certainly Laurence would not have looked this dejected if he had learned he was going to be a father, even if the conception had happened in a rather uncommon and reprehensible way.

Temeraire, not understanding much of human morals, was not entirely sure that what Emily had done was _sinful_, but he knew for sure that _he_ naturally would be offended if a female dragon used him for breeding without his consent. Still, he decided not to judge Emily, at least, not too much. The girl had been desperate and Laurence had been thick-headed, therefore both of them deserved to suffer a bit: Emily for playing Calypso, Laurence for ignoring the girl who could easily have made him the happiest man on earth.

Now, however, listening to the hollow voice of his captain reading out to him, Temeraire could not bring himself to wish for Laurence's 'suffering'. "She has told you, has she not?" he suddenly interrupted the _Aeneid_.

Closing the book, Laurence sighed. "That she has. But…" he looked up at his dragon, "how do you know?"

"Oh, I have known it for a while…"

"_Have you?_"

"Well, yes, Emily told me," Temeraire replied, trying not to sound guilty. "And I thought it was time she told you too."

"Yes," Laurence dropped the _Aeneid_ on to the grass, "I, as her captain, should have known. But… I can sort of understand why she had not told me earlier. She wanted to be sure of her condition before she did. I just… do not understand why she told _you _earlier…"

"Perhaps because I _asked_ her earlier," Temeraire pointed out. "_You _chose to be deaf and blind."

"I did not, I just…"

"You were just trying to avoid even looking at her and thinking of her," Temeraire said with a hint of accusation.

"Well, she has eventually found someone who _looked_ at her," Laurence replied sarcastically.

Temeraire shrugged his mighty shoulders. "What did you expect? _You_ did not want her…"

A long moment of silence ensued.

"I was a fool, was I not?" his captain hid his face in his palms.

Seeing Laurence so desperate, Temeraire felt like consoling him, even telling him the truth, but he had promised Emily to keep it a secret, at least for a while. It was not a nice feeling in the least – a lie of omission. Temeraire had never lied to his captain before… "A fool, Laurence? Hmm, yes, I think that you were. But so was Emily, keeping the truth, the complete truth from the father… I cannot laud either of you for your behaviour. You should have given her a chance, and she should have told the father that he was the father. I think the poor man deserves to know…"

Temeraire was careful not to deepen the lie and had chosen his words in a way that, when possibly questioned later, he could use for defending himself. He had, after all, not with a single word told Laurence that it had been another man giving Emily an egg. But even like this, he felt as though he were lying.

Laurence, however, looked up at him with an enlightened expression. "That is it, Temeraire! The father deserves to know!" With that, he jumped up from the grass, even forgetting to snatch up the _Aeneid_.

"Laurence, hey, Laurence, where are you going…?"

oOo

_Dear Tom,_

_You must be surprised to receive this letter, and I must admit I am writing it with a heavy heart, but with the best of intentions. I hope the letter reaches you with a courier dragon before you leave the coastline of Australia, as time is of utmost importance._

_It so happens that my second lieutenant, Emily Roland – you surely remember her from our earlier voyages on the Allegiance – has got into trouble, and I understand the guilty party was one of your men, a certain James Porter. _

_Emily has expressed her intentions of not letting the father know, but I consider it my duty as a gentleman to inform Mr. Porter, thus giving him a chance to make amends. _

_I know it is not a pleasant task I am asking of you to let your officer know such delicate a matter, but I beg you to remember how you felt upon learning of Catherine's condition. Surely we cannot deny a young man a chance to correct his mistakes._

_Thank you for your help and understanding._

_Please, give my regards to Catherine when you meet her, and through her to Granby, Berkley and the others._

_Yours,_

_Will Laurence_

_January 21, 1816_

oOo

February brought with itself long-awaited rains, the herald of autumn to come, and for Emily, a welcome relief from morning sickness. She finally managed to keep all three meals of the day down and quickly put the lost weight back on, but still remained relatively thin at every other body part save her belly. Slowly she was beginning to show, the baby a shallow lump under her tight-fitting aviator's cloak.

Physically she could not have been in a better condition, but emotionally she was more fragile than ever. Every time she laid eyes upon Laurence – and she did not meet him often, having been transferred to the ground crew and left at the covert by day – her heart clenched at seeing the impassivity on his features. Whenever he caught her eyes, he was quick to look away, as though her mere glance had burned him.

She could not put down his behaviour to anything else but discomfort with her condition, and his discomfort she only could put down to his possible feelings for her. Temeraire had, after all, claimed that his captain thought her to be special, in more than one respect. Still, he avoided her, did not address her unless it was absolutely necessary, and after a while Emily began to convince herself that Temeraire had been wrong and Laurence did not like her in the least, and it was his stupid sense of propriety that kept him at an arm's length from a 'disreputable woman' like her.

On the 15th March, however, she caught a glimpse of him heading for her, his expression dark, a crumpled sheet of paper in his hand.

"Mr. Roland, may I have a word with you?" he said in a low voice.

Emily, who was taking a refreshing walk in the covert grounds before dinner, stopped in her stride. "Naturally, sir. What can I help you with?"

"You cannot help me. _I _tried to help you, even despite your own foolish insistence on not letting the father know," he replied, his face flushed, but this time not with embarrassment, but with anger. She did not remember ever seeing him so stern. He nearly terrified her.

"What… what are you talking about?" she muttered, her voice wavering.

He took a deep breath. "Mr. Roland, I tried to save you from making a huge mistake, so I took the liberty of writing to Captain Riley, asking him to inform the young man who got you into trouble."

"But… but… sir!" Emily felt herself blanching, and was suddenly as dizzy as she had been the first time she had had her morning sickness.

"I think you can guess what he replied, but I am letting you read it yourself." With that, he none at all gently pushed the crumpled sheet of paper into her hands.

Trembling from head to toe, she unfolded the letter.

_Dear William,_

_I hope this letter finds you well._

_I am sorry to hear of your second lieutenant's predicament, but I am afraid I cannot offer you any help. It so happens that the only Porter on my ship is the cook, a man of nearly sixty years, and he is an Elijah, not a James. There are two Jameses, one of them James Harris, a boy of twelve years, the other my first lieutenant, James Avery, who claims never even have met an Emily Roland. _

_Your second lieutenant might have remembered the name wrong or the ship wrong – there were a few smaller ships in the port of Sydney at the time she must have conceived, were there not?_

_I am truly sorry of not having been able to assist._

_I shall naturally give Catherine your regards._

_Yours,_

_Tom Riley_

_February 20, 1816_

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Emily looked up. She had never even thought it would occur to Laurence to write to Riley! Then again, she probably should have thought of it, knowing her captain's tendency to play the gentleman even when his gentlemanly services were uncalled for.

"Well, Mr. Roland," Laurence said, his voice peremptory, "I believe I have a right to demand an explanation."

oOo

**A/N: so, what does Emily reply? Find out from the next chapter – and until then, review, please! :)**


	7. Living a Lie

**AN/: as usual, thanks a lot for the reviews!**

**Chapter 7**

**Living a Lie**

"Well, Mr. Roland, I believe I have a right to demand an explanation."

Emily was at a loss for words. Staring into his eyes and seeing anger in them she had begun to be frightened of him even before she had read the letter, but now she noticed something else in his eyes: detestation. And that she could not leave without a word. True, she had used him and lied to him, but she had done everything out of love – she had used him because she loved him so much that she would not have any other man's child, and she had lied to him because she did not want to force him into any sort of commitment as long as _he_ did not love her back. Everything she had done, she had done _for_ him and _because_ _of_ him, so he had no bloody right to detest her when _he_ had been the cause of all her misery!

"You are demanding an explanation from me, sir?" she snapped. "I could also demand an explanation from you! I made it clear for you that I did not want the father to know, and still you went behind my back and wrote to Captain Riley!"

"I did it because I wanted to help you, ungrateful girl!" he replied, his voice rising in pitch, his face redder by the second.

"I did not ask for your help!" she stamped her foot, knowing she was going too far, and yet she could not bring herself to hold back now. Pregnancy had made her even more emotional than she been before, and now all her emotions – all her worries, her shame, her guilt, her love – spilled over the brim of an imaginary dam and flooded her mind, making her unable to think clearly. "You had no right to write to Riley, you had no bloody right…" She felt her hands clench into fists and hot tears run down her cheeks. Through the veil of tears blurring her vision, she was surprised to see Laurence staring at her, his anger all but vanished from his features, replaced by some anxious gentleness.

"You are right, Mr. Roland," he said stiffly, his voice flat and quiet. "I had no right to do that. But _you_ had no right to lie to me when I asked you who the father was. You could as easily have said you did not want to tell, and I would have been satisfied with that answer."

"Would you have?" she arched an eyebrow at him.

Laurence bit into his lower lip. "I would not have easily accepted it, but I would have done so, nonetheless. There was no excuse for lying me in the face, Mr. Roland. Had you done it in connection with your duties, you would be reduced to midwingman now, but since you lied about a matter of your private life… I cannot demote you, no matter how much I would like to."

Something in Emily's mind snapped at this. "You would like to demote me?" she let out a shrill laugh. "Believe me, I would not care, sir! I will, after all, be Excidium's captain some day, formation leader, perhaps… even admiral like my mother, but you, sir, will always be a convicted traitor at the back of beyond! And if you will excuse me now, I am not feeling very well."

She turned on her heels and marched off, leaving a shocked Laurence behind, her soul in turmoil, angry tears once again spilling down her cheeks. How she hated herself for everything she had just told him, but heck, he deserved every single word of it!

"Emily!" he caught up with her after a few steps, his face as white as a sheet.

She stopped in her stride and fixed him with a defiant look, her voice icy as she said, "Yes, sir? Are you firing me from Temeraire's crew? Go on, do it!"

Laurence closed his eyes for a moment and ran a hand through his greying blond hair. "I have not thought of such a thing. I know you are just emotionally unstable now with the baby on the way, so I shall not judge you for it. Besides, you are too valuable an officer to lose… and too dear a friend as well. I just wanted to tell you that I truly only wanted to help… but from now on, I promise I shall refrain from poking my nose into matters of your private life... at least I shall definitely not do it behind your back. It is your choice to not tell the father… whoever he is."

Emily pursed her lips and hung her head. She felt even more ashamed of herself now. He had only meant well, and she had lashed out at him so unfairly… Yes, he had caused her more pain than anyone else in the world, but he did not know that, and she could not punish him for a crime he did not even know he had committed. "I do not remember it well, sir," she muttered under her breath. "I must have been drunk."

She had not even told a complete lie, as she did not remember every detail of that night out in the wilderness. She had spent some of the time in a dream-like state – drunken with bliss and hurt, insane with worry for his health. Now all her actions inside his tent were like pieces of a hazy memory, the only moment she clearly recalled a contented sigh issuing from his lips at the climax – a sigh only, and he had slept on.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder and slowly raised her head to look into a pair of serene blue eyes – serene, full of sympathy, but there was something else there as well, veiled, half-concealed, but still existent… Desire? Could it be? His breathing was somewhat heavier than usual, and the sigh that left his lips shockingly resembled the one she remembered so well from that night…

Emily's breathing quickened, her heart began to hammer frantically… His face was so close, his breath so warm on her cheeks…

Then the bell calling for dinner rang, and the magic of the moment was broken. Blushing, Laurence took a step back, leaving Emily's lips tingling with the kiss they had almost shared. She gulped, forcing herself to stop trembling.

"Dinner," he said, the short little word sounding somewhat awkward from his mouth.

"I am sorry for what I have said, sir," she replied, managing a vague smile. "Please, forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive," he shook his head. "After all, everything you have said about our respective status in life is true."

"Sir… I do not regard you as a traitor. Never did."

He chose not to comment, just began walking towards the building complex. "Next time, Mr. Roland, please, be honest with me."

"I shall try," she nodded. _As honest as I can be without telling you my greatest secret…_

oOo

Emily had excused herself from dinner early, claiming to be very tired, and several minutes later Laurence caught himself staring at her vacant place at the table, sipping the umpteenth glass of wine.

"You're worried about her, aren't ya, sir?" Allen said, stifling a hiccough.

Laurence nodded, his senses muted by alcohol.

"I know she doesn't care much for her honour, but still…" the young man drawled, his tongue not really cooperating after the fourth glass of port.

"But still… I would beat that cur who got her into trouble until he were willing to marry her, and Corps rules of non-duelling be damned," Laurence replied under his breath, more to his own glass than to his first lieutenant.

"You know what?" Allen hiccoughed, spilling a bit of his wine. "If I were not elsewhere engaged, I'd make an honest woman outta her myself. Yeah… definitely." With that his head slumped onto the table and he began to snore.

Disgusted by Allen's inebriated state, Laurence put down his own glass and got up from his seat. He badly needed some fresh air to be able to think clear.

After half an hour spent on his favourite cliff overlooking the Pacific, listening to the gentle sound of waves splashing against the rock surface, his mind was still a bit hazy, but clearing by the moment. He closed his eyes, imagining her face so near to his, teardrops glimmering on her eyelashes, her lips wet… would they have tasted salty? – he caught himself wondering, then shuddered, whether from the autumn night's chill or from something else, he did not know. All he knew was that she had never looked as alluring as she had during their little quarrel, her face red with tears and fury – at that moment she had been an emotional woman… a _real _woman, not the little tomboy she had always been… and he had desired her so much…

Taking a deep, calming breath, Laurence shook his head. No matter how attractive she had been, he knew he could not, should not even think of her, he had made a vow and there was no way he would break it…

But he had not wanted to break it, had he? No, surely not… he had only wanted to help her, to save as much of her honour as there was still to be saved. He had seen Reverend Whitwell cast disapproving glances at her at the latest services, her condition beginning to be obvious for everyone, her bottle green uniform barely hiding the slight bulge of her belly anymore, and even though she seemed to pay those glances no attention, they had hurt Laurence. For they had been directed at _her_. He could not stand seeing her honour crumble day by day when he could possibly do something for her… After all, he had helped Catherine Harcourt too, had he not? This case was nothing different from that one, was it?

Sighing, he stood up from the rock he had been sitting on and lifted his eyes to the stars, as though trying to peer beyond them, trying to find an answer in the vastness of the sky… as if hoping to catch a glance of the Almighty who might show him a solution...

But there was nothing to behold but the Southern Cross, flanked by Centaurus and Carina, and Laurence knew he was trying to deceive himself. In Catherine's case, he had only wanted to defend the honour of a gentlewoman whom he respected. With Emily it was something different. Something… more. Something stronger. And try as he might to convince himself that he did not know _why _it was different, he did not really manage. He knew he was falling for her, and there was nothing to stop his fall. Nothing.

He had to find a way to help her… somehow.

oOo

Emily stayed in her seat, while the rest of the congregation left the church, their happy, carefree murmur slowly dying away. She felt a longing to be as carefree as everyone else, to be able to smile on a sunny Sunday morning like this, but all she felt was hollowness, fear and guilt.

The old vicar slouched into the vestry, giving her a questioning glance on the way, but she diverted her eyes, feeling her cheeks burn with shame. Whitwell's eyes held a slight reproach, and Emily felt as though the old man could see into her soul and knew exactly what terrible lie she was living.

Then the door of the vestry closed with a soft thump, and the church looked very empty all of a sudden, very peaceful too, but almost frighteningly silent. The sweet scent of autumn roses standing in vases on the altar drifted on the air – a pleasant smell that mere weeks earlier had turned her stomach. Now she could enjoy it without feeling sick, but even though she was not nauseous, she did feel a bit ill in the eternal silence engulfing her. She had never felt so lonely before.

However, this silence and loneliness, despite the unease they caused Emily, were exactly what she needed now – during the sermon and the prayers of intercession she had not been able to collect her jumbled thoughts, and she had not even allowed her mind to wander off the course of the service, for she had feared if she were to try a silent prayer of her own, she would only make a fool of herself: she had been sure she would start to cry in front of the whole congregation.

Now, with the church empty, she could afford to let emotions wash over her, as she was alone, alone with only God present.

_O Lord… what am I to do? Every day I feel stronger for the child growing inside of me, but every day I feel my life and that of the child a bigger lie than the previous day. I had never thought it would be like this… I thought it would be so easy to conceive and carry the baby, I never imagined Will would be so much of a… problem! I love him dearly, You know that, and having to lie to him torments me so… Yesterday I was so close… so close to telling him the truth… but I could not! He would only hate me for it… and I don't want him to hate me. O Lord, I know this must be your punishment for my sins, and I am sure I deserve all of it… but don't You think it has been enough? I don't know how long I can take it…You probably want me to tell him the truth and keep punishing me until I do, but Lord, please understand… just to think how he would hate me if I told him…I simply cannot do that! I can't deliberately make him hate me!_

Emily licked a stray tear from her lips – she had not even noticed she had started to cry. _I would rather Will never loved me but __**liked**__ me at least a bit than to have him hate me… it's very hard, having him so near and yet so far, but still more bearable than having him completely reject me for the way I have sinned against him… and he would have every right to hate me… but his hate would kill me. O Lord, why do I have to love him so much? Isn't it in the Bible that love comes from You? If it is so, could you not possibly… take it away? Relieve me of my pain?_

_O dear God, what am I thinking?_ – she bent her head on her clasped hands, slumping forward in her seat, her whole body shaking with silent sobs.

She did not know how long she wept, she only knew it was a relief to cry. Somewhere in the back of her mind she noted to herself how clever she had been to banish such thoughts until the congregation had dispersed, for she would have died of shame if anyone had seen her like this, broken and weak.

Suddenly she felt something warm engulf her, spreading from the top of her head throughout her body, accompanied by a soft and gentle sensation. Had God sent an angel to console her through an ethereal touch? – she wondered, her head still bent on her hands, her eyes closed, but her tears slowly ebbing. The sensation lingered – the angel was gently stroking her head in a way no one had stroked it before, not even her mother. Jane Roland had never been a particularly caring mother and had never showed much affection, but Emily imagined this was how a mother's caress should have felt. Loving, patient… real. Too real to be that of an angel, to real to be ethereal…

Emily lifted her head to look into the face of William Laurence standing next to her, his eyes full of concern and understanding. Her heart sank into her stomach. God had apparently not wanted to take her love away, for at that moment she felt overwhelmed by her emotions for her captain.

He withdrew his hand. "May I sit down?"

Emily pulled herself into a proper sitting position and said, sniffing, "The church is empty, sir. I am not sitting in the backmost pew, and there are loads of vacant seats…"

"But I would like to sit here, next to you, if you do not mind, Emily," he replied, his voice slightly wavering as though he were a bit nervous.

She nodded jerkily, and he took a place next to her, offering her a handkerchief. She accepted it somewhat reluctantly, but blew her nose out loud enough to echo throughout the church.

"What?" she arched an eyebrow at him, seeing his lips tuck into an amused smile. "I will naturally clean it and return it to you, sir."

His amused smile lingered as he replied, "You can keep it."

"So… what are you doing here?" she asked, wiping the remainder of her tears, "besides watching pathetic pregnant girls weep?" she added with a sarcastic edge.

"I do not think you are pathetic, Emily," he shook his head. "On the contrary, you are keeping up remarkably. You are very brave and I can only admire you for your inner strength."

"What inner strength?" she frowned at him. "Had I had any, you would not have found me here, crying…"

"You have more than you could possibly imagine. At first I thought you just handled your… predicament in the same way Catherine Harcourt did – with total impassivity and a 'hang the egg' attitude, but… I was wrong. You love this child, I can see that, while for Catherine it had only been a nuisance. And for the sake of your child, you are strong."

Emily felt fresh tears threatening to come, but blinked them back. Her child, a nuisance? This precious little life, given to her by the only man she ever loved? How could she not love it? How could any woman not love the life growing inside of her?

"Emily…" he carried on, his voice wavering even more than previously, "I have been thinking. A lot. Actually, I did not sleep a wink last night, and by dawn I had made a decision."

"Decision? What decision?" she mopped her wet cheeks with a still clean corner of his handkerchief. There were the initials 'WL' embroidered into it in a neat blue yarn.

He slipped a little closer to her. "I am sorry my former attempt at helping you was such a failure, Emily, and I am even sorrier that I hurt you… I did not mean to. I would like to make up for it and help you in a way that hopefully will not hurt you…"

"Make up for it? Help me? What are you talking about, sir? If it's about my tainted honour, then pray forget about it, for I don't give a damn about my stupid honour."

Laurence let out a sigh. "I know you do not, but I do. And your honour does not need be tainted… at least not any more than it already is… Listen, Emily, I know that _my_ honour is tainted too and it is not much to offer, but I am offering it to you anyway, along with a name that is tainted too, but…"

"Sir, what are you talking about?" she breathed, her heart hammering against her ribcage, fully aware what he was so awkwardly hinting at. Awkwardly, but endearingly… at that moment she felt like hugging him, kissing him and shouting a 'Thank you, dear God!' from the top of her lungs… But she held back, trembling, waiting for the miracle to happen.

He swallowed hard and looked into her eyes. "Emily… will you marry me?"

oOo

**A/N: so, what will she reply? **

**I'm off now to watch Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Agi – stage left.**

**Oh, and please don't forget to review! :)**


	8. Like Magic

**A/N: thanks a lot for all the reviews, I'm glad you're enjoying the story! Let us go on…**

**Chapter 8**

**Like Magic**

"Emily, will you marry me?"

Emily had imagined this moment too many times already – as a girl in her early teens, as a girl in her late teens, as a young adult… and had always imagined it to be magical beyond anything. But now that she heard these words coming from her captain, she felt no exhilaration, for the whole thing seemed to be _too_ magical – too good to be true. And if there was something Emily had learned from an early age on, it was that things that appeared to be glittering like gold most often turned out to be fake.

"Sir," she gulped, too wary to show any emotions, "are you… are you quite willing to break your vow just to make an honest woman out of me?"

He diverted his eyes and blushed a bit. "I… I thought of marriage in name only. I would not be… touching you."

There. She had been right. The proposal was indeed just a fake piece of jewellery and its shine had vanished in a moment.

"I am sorry, Emily, but that is all I can offer… my vow…"

"To whom did you make that vow, sir?" she asked, her voice unusually scathing. "To God or to yourself?"

"To myself, but…"

"Then surely it could not be that terrible a sin to break it…?"

He heaved a sigh and turned to look into her eyes. "Emily, I have lost my honour in many ways already… the world regards me as a traitor, a disreputable man… but as long as I manage to keep the promises I made to myself, at least _I _can regard myself an honest man. And that means a lot to me. I have been forced to tell lies to others on a couple of occasions, but if I started telling _myself_ lies too, I would most definitely lose the last pieces of honour I can still hold onto. You must understand this, Emily…"

Her lips trembling, her fingers jerkily playing with his crumpled handkerchief, she replied, "I only understand that you do not want to take me as your wife properly. You surely know what the Bible says on this in One Corinthians? _'The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body but the wife.'_ See, I have not attended the services for nothing…" she gave him a sad smile. "You must know, sir, that I would rather sleep with you but not marry you than to marry you and never sleep with you. Therefore…" she took a deep breath and straightened her back, "my answer is no."

He let out a long breath, his eyes fixed on the Book of Common Prayer in the pew shelf. "I understand your point, Emily… and believe me, it is not easy for me either, for… heavens, you know well enough that I have longed to touch you ever since that service when you wore that frilly dress… I covet you just as much as you covet me, but… it is impossible, Emily. Please, consider my offer. I cannot promise to make you a happy wife, but I can promise to be a good father to your baby. I think… I could learn to love this child as though it were mine. We could even tell everyone it _is_ mine… only Allen would know it is not…"

A chill ran down Emily's spine at hearing him talk like this – talk of a child who was his, not knowing it was his, but offering to treat it as his…

She felt trapped.

She felt like screaming and kicking something, but at least tearing her hair.

Damn Laurence and his stupid honour, damn him for always being the gentleman!

Emily once again found herself crying, staring at the roses on the altar. This was simply too much for her to bear – to be yanked from desperation to exhilaration and pushed back into desperation in a mere few minutes!

"You are… most… generous, sir," she mumbled, wiping her eyes with the embroidered corner of his handkerchief, "and I am sure you would make an excellent father… just… not to my child. I am sorry… but I must decline your offer."

"Just… a few months ago _you_ offered marriage to me. And now you are rejecting _my _marriage proposal," he shook his head in disbelief.

Emily looked into his eyes. "I must. Because… under these conditions, I cannot accept it."

For a long moment silence ensued, which was finally broken by Laurence. "I do not wish for an answer now. Please, think it over, I am giving you time. I shall ask once again in a month."

Emily gave him a wistful little smile. "I am most grateful, sir, but I doubt if my answer will change in a month… or ever. But thank you anyway…" She pressed a gentle kiss on his cheek – a kiss she had intended to be quick and innocent, but, perhaps on an instinct, he slightly turned his head, and in the next instant his lips were pressed to hers, and she found herself clinging to him as for dear life, her arms sliding around his neck, his hands gently but firmly holding her waist. The kiss deepened and Emily thought this was what she had always dreamed of: him returning her kisses, starting a fire in the pit of her stomach, his hands roaming on her back, sending pleasant shivers down her spine…

"O God, I am sorry," he drew back suddenly and stumbled out of the pew. "We went too far, Emily… this should not have happened… and especially not here of all places… what if Reverend Whitwell had seen us? Heavens…" He ran a hand nervously across his locks, trying to comb them back into place, and straightened his cloak.

"See, sir?" Emily gave him a sarcastic grimace, "you would not be able to control yourself if we were to marry."

"Probably I would. All it requires is strength of will, which I believe I possess. Well… Miss Roland… I shall ask you later again." He bowed slightly in her direction and with quick steps left the church.

Once the echo of his steps had died away, Emily caught herself shaking. _O Lord,_ she slumped forward again, propping her forehead on her clutched hands and cried until she felt she had no tears left in her. Someone walked past her – probably the vicar, she did not know – and the church once again fell silent. As soon as her trembling lessened, she looked up, and through tear-veiled eyes she caught a glimpse of a smallish statue to the left of the altar. The statue of the Virgin Mary.

Emily had never prayed to Her before, as she had only recently started believing in God at all, all her prayers so far had been directed at the Lord Almighty. She only knew one prayer addressed to Her, and began reciting it, her lips moving silently.

_Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Holy Mary, besides You no one can understand me,_ she carried on, without even noticing she had switched from the prescribed wording of 'Hail Mary' to her own words, _no one but You can understand how much I am suffering for my child. You too have suffered for yours, You too are a mother, O Mary, I beg you to help me! Am I just a sinner, a slut who conceived in sin and a lie while your conception was immaculate, I know I can hold no candle to You, but I am a woman, like You… soon a mother, like You. And I love this little one like You love your Son… I only want the best for my child, and I know the best would be to marry Will, but… I cannot. Not like this. I am lying to him, and he is reluctant to touch me… what kind of a married couple would we make?_

She almost let out a sarcastic little laugh, but held back. _We are pathetic, aren't we, Will and I? Both of us with guilty conscience because of the other… and I don't know how long I can live like this… if only I knew the Lord has forgiven me for my sins… O Lord, please,_ she thought, once again not noticing she had switched from addressing Mary to addressing the Almighty, _please, give me a sign that I am forgiven! I beseech you!_

The church remained silent and the sun continued shining outside – no sounds of shuffling feet, no thunderclap, nothing.

Emily grimaced. What had she been hoping for? For the statue of Virgin Mary to come to life and tell her that her sins had been forgiven? She felt very stupid all of a sudden.

With a sigh, she pulled herself up on her seat, drying her tears for the umpteenth time that day, intent on leaving.

And then, she felt something. Something she had never felt before.

A kick.

"O God," she whispered, her hands gently covering her belly. The baby kicked again, and Emily felt as though all her sadness had been swept away. For the first time she actually _felt_ that there was a little someone living inside of her, and she could not have described with words what it felt like. Simply overwhelming. With fresh tears – ones of joy for a change – running down her cheeks, she walked to the statue of the Holy Virgin. "If that was a sign, then… thank you."

oOo

"You did WHAT?" Temeraire gasped.

"Shhh!" Laurence pressed his index finger to his lips. "Why not wake the whole covert?"

"Oh, good idea, let us wake them," the dragon replied, "it is not nice that my fellow dragons are drowsing all through the Sunday afternoon instead of keeping me company. I was feeling so very bored before you arrived. And come to think of it, are you sure you do not have sunstroke?"

"Why would I have sunstroke?" the man crossed his arms and glowered up at his dragon.

"Why, why, because you must have gone insane to want to marry Emily but not touch her, ever! Honestly, Laurence, it would be as if I received a herd of cows and was not allowed to taste any of them!"

"Temeraire, how can you liken Emily to a herd of cows?" Laurence said, exasperated.

"How could you make her such a humiliating offer?" the dragon countered.

"Humiliating? It was a perfectly honourable offer!" the captain snapped. "Any woman in her right mind and in Emily's place would have accepted it!"

"Yes, any woman in her _right mind_… but tell you what, Laurence, Emily loves you. And I have heard that love can make you lose your mind and make you do things completely lacking sense. I remember when I was with Mei… especially for the first time…" his voice trailed off, and he wistfully licked his mouth, "I had forgotten about everything else, even… even about you and the crew. She had robbed me of my ability to think clearly. You too have robbed Emily of her ability to think clearly."

"Oh, of course, it is all my fault!" Laurence waved dismissively.

Temeraire felt like saying 'yes, Laurence, because _you_ gave her the egg', but he could not. Besides, he knew well enough that Emily was just as much at fault as Laurence, if not more. Everything would have been fine if his captain had obliged Emily after she had first asked him – no lies, no secret coupling, no guilt would have been needed. Or well, perhaps there would havebeen _some_ guilt, knowing Laurence's prudishness, but still it would have been much easier for both Laurence and Emily if he had just given her an egg out of his own free will.

"I am not blaming you for Emily's falling in love with you," Temeraire said, "but I am blaming you for valuing your own stupid vow more than her love and devotion. You are more faithful to your vow than you ever were to a woman, Laurence… and it is bad. You think you can hold yourself for a more or less honourable man as long as you keep that vow, but that is stupid, for you _are_ an honourable man even without insisting on that vow. It is all about that silly pride thing, is it not?"

Laurence's lips twitched, and he patted Temeraire's side, his eyes downcast. "You seem to know me better than I know myself… or at least, just as well. Sometimes it scares me just how much you can see into my soul, Temeraire…"

"Why does it scare you?" the dragon pulled his captain closer to himself and curled his tail around him. "It does not scare _me_. But your current behaviour towards Emily _does _scare me. And did you not say that pride was one of the seven deadly sins? Why are you so proud, then, pray tell?"

Laurence sighed. "I have tried, Temeraire. For years I have tried to swallow my pride, but it has always got the better of me… I cannot fight it. It is stronger than me."

"I seriously do not think so," the dragon shook his head. "And besides, according to your religion it is a sin, while love is not a sin. Therefore love must be much stronger than pride, and your love should conquer your pride."

"My… love?" Laurence frowned upon his dragon. "It is Emily who loves me, not the other way around…"

"Is lying not against the Ten Commandments?" Temeraire asked innocently.

"I am sorry, my dear," Laurence slumped against the dragon's flank with a sigh of resignation. "I am just trying to convince myself that I do not love her… but I think I am failing miserably. At least… you have got over Mei, and quite quickly. Emily has not got over me… nor have I got over her. I fear… that with every day… I love her more and more."

"Oh…" Temeraire said, his heart clenching. How he longed to tell his captain about the paternity of Emily's child! But he had promised Emily to keep silent. He wished he had not made such a promise, especially because keeping his promise meant prolonged suffering for both Laurence and Emily. "But if you love her so much… and you desire her too, which you obviously do, then… why can you not marry her properly… with all the touching and egg making involved?"

Laurence snorted. "First of all, she does need an egg anymore, she is having one… Secondly… it would not do to break my vow just to please her in bed…"

"Why not? It is just a stupid vow, and no one is going to make you account for it if you happen to break it."

"No one but me! My own conscience!"

"Oh, come on," Temeraire rolled his eyes. "Stop being silly… If you had made that vow to someone else…" _Like I did to Emily_, he added in thought, "then you would be in trouble for breaking it, but this way…"

"Enough of this, Temeraire, please," Laurence said firmly. "My offer was honest, and if she does not take it, then it is her problem."

"Oh, your stupid pride again," the dragon groaned.

"Yes, my stupid pride!" Laurence jumped to his feet. "And now, if you do not mind, I and my stupid pride are leaving."

"_My stupid pride and I_, that is the right and polite order," Temeraire commented.

"Of course," Laurence waved indignantly and trotted away.

"Good bye to you too, Laurence," Temeraire called after him, but his captain was paying him no attention. Looking at the man's receding figure, Temeraire bent his head on his forelegs, feeling dejected. Humans were indeed so unreasonable… especially when love was concerned.

If only, if only he had not promised Emily…

oOo

Emily was surprised to be called aside by Temeraire the following day during her early morning walk. The dragon looked agitated for some reason.

"Emily, I have been thinking and decided that I have had enough of this," Temeraire blurted out. "I can no longer hold back, I just have to tell Laurence if you do not tell him yourself!"

The girl felt the world spin around her all of a sudden. "No, Temeraire! You mustn't!"

"Why not? I can see this whole stupid secrecy is making both of you miserable! It would be much better if he knew the truth!"

"What for? He would only learn to hate me if he did!"

"Honestly, I do not think he could switch from loving you to hating you so easily, he has too big a heart for that!"

"Oh, Temeraire, please," Emily groaned, "stop this 'Laurence loves me' idiocy, I know he does not!"

"But he does! He does! He told me yesterday that he loved you more and more with every passing day!"

For a moment Emily just stared into the dragon's eyes, afraid even to breath. Could it be true? Could her captain love her back? "I expect… he shan't be happy to learn you have told me these things," she said finally, her voice quivering. She needed all her willpower to quell her urges to cry – to cry with happiness and hope, fear and shame.

"Oh, _he_ never made me swear to keep it a secret… But you are right, he would surely be very miffed to find out, but he does not _need to_ find out, does he?" Temeraire said conspiratorially.

Emily crossed her arms and gave the dragon a piercing look. "So, _you_ can keep secrets from him, but I cannot? How fair is that?"

Temeraire tried to look innocent as he replied, "Life is never fair, is it? But what you are doing to him is even more unfair than me telling you behind his back that he loves you."

"But how does he love me?" Emily muttered, still too wary to believe this was not another 'glittering jewellery' sort of hope whose shine would fade instantly.

"Oh, he loves you very much, I would say he loves you more than I would love to have a herd of cows, and that is saying something."

"That's not what I meant," Emily shook her head with a chuckle. "_How_ does he love me? Like… a friend? Or… a daughter? Or… something else?"

"Well, he might have considered you as a daughter many, many years ago, why, even his parents thought you to be his by-blow, but…"

"WHAT?" Emily gasped, not knowing whether she was supposed to be outraged or laughing like mad. "His parents…? Oh, I understand!" she slapped her forehead. "That's why his mother sent me the garnet necklace! Oh, heavens…" She no longer could hold back her laughter. "This is just too bloody hilarious…"

"Hilarious? I would not think so, poor Laurence suffered quite a bit because of it, he was so ashamed… But anyway… he does not love you as a daughter now, he loves you as a woman, I am sure of that. Why else would he want to marry you?"

"Oh, that," Emily waved impatiently. "He only wants to marry me to save my stupid honour, there were no romantic feelings involved in his proposal!"

"Probably there were… just… well-hidden."

The girl arched an eyebrow at the dragon. "Well-hidden? Pray tell, even if he loved me, what good would it do to me to tell him the truth if that would only make him detest me? And even if that would not make him detest me, what good would it do to me to tell him the truth and possibly marry him when he would never care to touch me? I am playing an all or nothing game, Temeraire. Either I get him completely, in every respect, body and soul, or I do not want him at all."

Temeraire regarded her silently for a long moment. "But what if you told him the truth and married him, and seduced him later…?" he suggested finally. "I am quite sure he would soften towards you with time… or _harden_, if that is what you want," he added with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Temeraire!" Emily flushed. "Please… do not talk like that! I am a total loser when it comes to seducing men! I have no idea how it is done! I tried it once, I failed. Laurence has a strong willpower, if he decides not to touch me, he will not touch me, no matter how scantily I dress or how I flutter my eyelashes at him… besides, it is really not my style to do that."

"Oh, yes, it is much more your style to wait for him to be unconscious and…"

"Temeraire, please!" Emily hid her face in her palms. "Please, do not keep mentioning that… I feel bad enough for it as it is…"

"Then perhaps you should go for the scanty clothing once again," Temeraire shrugged.

"Oh, no. No way! I felt outrageous when I tried it that one time. I am… simply too shy for that. And too innocent."

"Innocent? Emily, dear, you are anything but innocent," Temeraire shook his head with a chuckle.

Her cheeks burning, she joined in with a small giggle of her own. "Okay, perhaps not perfectly innocent. But still. I have not been brought up to know all these tricks women are supposed to know… Laurence would never fall for my pathetic attempts at deviousness."

"But he _has_ fallen for your naturalness, devoid of any affectation. And I think he would fall more for that naturalness paired with complete honesty."

Emily stared at the grass, her arms folded around herself as though she were cold. Finally she nodded, if somewhat absent-mindedly. "Perhaps you are right. I will think of it and try to find the ideal opportunity to tell him. Just give me a little more time, will you?"

"Just a little more."

Emily patted the dragon's foreleg. "Thank you, Temeraire."

oOo

A month had passed since he had asked her; and every single day he had checked the calendar hanging in the covert dining room to make sure he would not miss the day he was supposed to propose again. Perhaps his exact timing would mean nothing to Emily, but Laurence had always paid great attention even to the smallest details, therefore, on the 16th April, he instructed the crew to return to the covert a little early and went to look for Emily, hoping to find her before dinner.

After half an hour of search he found her standing on 'his' cliff, overlooking the ocean.

She had a few weeks earlier forgone her aviator uniform, no longer able to fit into it, and was currently wearing a lavender dress with a purple silk sash tied into a ribbon right under her breasts, accentuating the curve of her belly. She had not noticed him yet, and Laurence caught himself staring – he had never seen her so enchantingly feminine before, her right hand gently caressing the child inside of her. His heart clenched, watching the rhythmical movement of her hand, as realisation struck him that her ring finger painfully lacked a wedding band.

Laurence cleared his throat and she turned around, giving him a puzzled look. "Are you all right, sir?"

"Yes, yes, of course," he nodded, feeling nervous all of a sudden. He did not know _why_ he was feeling nervous, after all, she had turned him down once before, it was not like he would be either shocked or devastated by a second rejection… and still, he felt his limbs slightly tremble as he walked up to her. "Beautiful view, is it not?" he muttered, his eyes fixed upon the horizon.

"Yes. But I love coming here even more in the morning, to watch the sunrise," she replied, shuddering a bit in the autumn chill.

"Here," he took off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. "Green might look quite horrible with lavender, but…"

"Sir, you are making aimless small talk," she remarked with a crooked smile. "But thank you for the coat. It is pleasantly warm."

"You are most welcome," he returned her smile, but just for a moment, then he willed his features to straighten. "You are right, Emily… enough of the small talk. One month has passed, and I am here to ask if you have given my proposal any thought."

"Certainly I have, sir."

"And…? Your answer?" he gulped, almost too afraid to look her in the eye.

She heaved a deep sigh. "Have your conditions changed in any way, sir?"

Laurence shook his head mutely.

"Then my answer has not changed either."

He had not really been hoping she would say yes, but it was worth a try. "Naturally I understand."

Neither of them looked at each other for a while, Laurence's gaze following a seagull flying in circles above the rocks, Emily stubbornly glaring at the ground.

Suddenly she stiffened and let out a small gasp.

"What happened?" he looked back at her, a wave of concern washing over him. "Are you all right?"

"I am, she just gave an almighty kick," Emily chuckled.

"_She_?" Laurence's eyes widened. "How do you know…?"

"Oh, I do not know, I am just wishing for a girl," she shrugged, rubbing her hands across her abdomen. "She's a vigorous little one, perhaps already training to be a runner… Oh, that was another big one," she gasped again, and Laurence could not decide whether she had gasped in pain or just in surprise, but in the next moment she was smiling again. "Would you like to feel…?"

He swallowed hard. "May I…?"

"Of course." She reached out and gently guided his hand to her belly.

Laurence was overwhelmed – he had never touched a woman in this way before. The soft ripples under his palm were occasionally interrupted by stronger kicks or punches – he did not know whether they were coming from the baby's feet or fists.

He lifted his gaze to meet Emily's. "This is… like magic."

"Yes, isn't it?" the girl replied, covering his hand with hers.

Time stopped for a short while, the two of them standing on the cliff, their eyes locked, heedless of the seagulls screeching around them, heedless of the chilly autumn wind. Only the two – three – of them existed. Then the bell calling for dinner rang somewhere in the distance, and Laurence pulled his hand back, muttering an 'I am sorry', his cheeks reddening as he realised that he had been touching her too long, improperly long. "Dinner," he added, looking away, trying to conceal his embarrassment.

Emily nodded, but before he could set out towards the covert grounds, she cleared her throat. "Sir… there is something I would like to tell you."

"Good, because there is something I too would like to tell you," he replied, "but ladies first."

"No, no, you first. What I want to tell… can wait."

He wondered whether he was just imagining the uneasy, almost ashamed expression on her face and the slight waver in her voice. As a gentleman, however, he decided not to pry. Whatever it was that she wanted to tell him, she would tell him when she felt ready. Or perhaps she _had_ felt ready, but _his _interruption had made her change her mind? "Are you sure? I too can wait…"

"Yes, I am sure. Go ahead, sir," she replied, her voice still sounding a bit odd. "What did you want to tell me?"

"Oh, nothing special, just that we are leaving tomorrow on another longer assignment. It might last three weeks, even four. Please… in these few weeks, think over my proposal once again. Perhaps… it will be easier to think with a clear head in my absence."

"Sir, I will not change my mind…"

"Emily, please… I am only asking you to think it over. Surely that is not that huge a task…"

"Is this an order from my captain?" she arched an eyebrow at him, amused.

He felt his cheeks flush once again. "No, not really… just a request. From a friend to a friend."

She looked away, whether hurt or confused or simply uneasy, he could not decide. "All right. If all you are asking of me is to think of it, I believe I can do that."

"That is great," he said, offering her his arm, but she pretended not to notice, and with deliberate, almost masculine steps, walked off towards the covert grounds.

oOo

Emily did not sleep much that night, kept tossing and turning – as much as her belly would allow her, as it started to get slightly uncomfortable to sleep in certain positions – and by morning she had made her decision. The previous evening she had been very close to telling him the truth, wanting to use the 'magic of the moment', but he had been foolish enough to interrupt. She was a bit mad at him for having done so, for she surely would have gathered enough courage to blurt out the truth, had he not interrupted.

Now, however, her decision to tell him was firmer than ever. He would be away for almost a month, giving not only her a chance to think over his proposal, but also himself a chance to slowly accept the fact that she had used him and that her child was his. Yes, she only had to tell him right before they left, not giving him an opportunity to lash out at her, but leaving him weeks to come to terms with the news.

After breakfast she found Laurence and the crew by Temeraire's side, the harnessmen rigging the dragon out, Laurence and Allen shouting orders.

"Sir," Emily stepped to the captain, "I know you are busy, but… may I have a word?"

"Of course," he nodded and walked some distance away from the crew, she following. "Yes, Emily?" he stopped under a eucalyptus tree. "What did you want to tell me?"

Looking into his eyes, those serene blue pools, Emily felt her legs turn into jelly. He looked so peaceful now… did she have a right to ruin that?

"Well? Go on," he said, encouragingly, only to make her tremble even more.

"Sir, I… I…"

"Captain, we're ready!" Allen shouted from Temeraire's back.

"Thank you, Mr. Allen, I am coming in a minute!" Laurence waved at his first lieutenant, then turned back to Emily. "I have to go soon, so please, if you have something to tell me, pray do it now."

Emily bit into her lower lip. "I just wanted to tell you… to take care. Safe journey, sir."

"Thank you, Emily," he replied with a slight frown, his eyes suspiciously searching her features. "Is that all?"

She gulped. "Y…yes, sir."

"You too take care, please. Take care of both of you." With that he gently squeezed her shoulder, then turned on his heels and marched off.

_Bother_, Emily sighed. She had never felt such a damn coward before. _Thank God mother does not know I have chickened out! She would surely die of shame! A Roland is never supposed to chicken out… never! And… I shan't, either!_

"Sir!" she called, breaking into a run towards Temeraire whose great wings took the crew aloft in that very instant, their swishing sound muffling her voice. "Laurence!" she shouted, but they were already far away. "Will…" her voice turned into a whisper as she leaned against the railing dividing the dragon grounds from the rest of the covert, clutching at her bulging belly, tears of shame running down her cheeks. At that moment she did not even feel worthy of the name 'Roland'.

oOo

"Something is bothering you, Laurence," Temeraire observed. "I have been watching you ever since we left Sydney, and that was two weeks ago… pray tell what happened?"

Laurence shook his head. "I have an unsettling feeling that Emily wanted to tell me something before we left… even the evening before the day we left."

"But she did not tell you that something, did she?"

"No, she did not. But she looked a bit odd, sort of… longing to tell me… whatever it was."

"Well," Temeraire said, idly watching the clouds of mist soaring from the bottom of the falls they were having their lunch break by, "perhaps she just… lost her courage. Or perhaps the timing was wrong. I am sure she would have told you, under different circumstances…"

"Told me? What?"

The dragon heaved a sigh. He could and probably should grab the opportunity now and disclose Emily's secret to his captain, but he had promised Emily he would not do so as long as she was willing to tell Laurence… some day. But when? "Tell you what, Laurence, I think when we get back, you should ask her about that egg of hers."

"Ask her?" the man frowned up at his dragon. "Ask her _what_ about the egg?"

"Well, perhaps about who gave it to her…" Temeraire absent-mindedly drew circles into the dust.

"But I know who gave it to her! Some bloody sailor whose name she does not even remember!"

"Bloody sailor?" Temeraire echoed in disbelief. "Well, perhaps once he used to be a sailor, but…" he realised just in time he was telling too much, and, trying to not look guilty, flattened his ruff against his neck. "Just ask her, all right?"

"What for?" Laurence sighed, apparently not having noticed Temeraire's slip of the tongue. "She does not even remember the man properly…"

"Oh, I am sure she does…"

"Are you telling me she lied to me? Again?"

"Oh, I am not making such assumptions, but I beg you to take this piece of advice from me: ask her when we get home. Most definitely ask her."

Laurence waved his hand in resignation. "She would only lie again… or simply keep silent. Besides… it really does not concern me, I have nothing to do with it… neither with her… nor with her child."

Temeraire cast his eyes down, repressing the urge to blurt out 'but you have everything to do with them, Laurence!'. It was getting harder and harder to keep the secret, to leave his beloved captain in despair and doubt…

"But Laurence, you wanted to marry her… you cannot say her predicament does not concern you then…"

"I _am _concerned about it, yes, but still… I am beginning to think I am a fool to keep proposing to her only to get rejected again and again… and all that for a woman who is carrying someone else's child…"

"…and all that for a woman you love," Temeraire added, gently nuzzling his captain. "I bet she will not keep silent, if only you tell her that _I_ told you to ask her. Yes, by all means, mention my name to her. She will tell you the truth."

"Am I right in assuming that you too… know the truth?" the captain gave his dragon a half-curious, half-accusing glance.

"I might know… something. But it is Emily who knows everything, so please, ask _her_. Will you ask her?"

"I will, I will," Laurence sighed, slumping against Temeraire's side. "And now, rest a bit, my dear. We have to fly on soon."

Temeraire, however, did not reply, and Laurence felt the dragon's muscles stiffen as he leaned against them. "Wha…?" he began, but the word froze in his throat as a huge, white figure dissolved from the mists of the waterfall, taking slow but deliberate steps towards them.

Temeraire must have been too surprised to sound threatening, so his voice came out almost high and meek, "Lien…?"

oOo

**A/N: I just LOVE cliffhangers. Don't you too? ;)**

**Review, please!**


	9. Missing

**A/N: Once again, thanks for all the reviews!**

**This is the shortest chapter in the story, but I hope you will still like it.**

**Chapter 9**

**Missing**

"Lien…?" Although Temeraire's voice sounded a little hesitant at first, he managed to continue in a firmer tone, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Your manners still have not improved, I gather," she replied, lowering herself on her hunches, elegantly curling her long white tail around herself. She no longer wore a diadem of any sort, but even like this, bare of jewellery, she looked more regal than any dragon Laurence had ever seen.

Temeraire's crew, who had been having lunch scattered under nearby trees, now dispersed, some of them hiding in the bushes, some moving behind larger rocks. From the distance Laurence could not tell for sure, but he assumed that Allen must have instructed his subordinates to hide, he being the only member of Temeraire's crew – save Emily, of course – who had met Lung Tien Lien face to face before.

"I do not care about my manners," Temeraire growled at the other Celestial. "What. Are. You. Doing. Here?"

"Oh, may a poor creature not enjoy a bit of leisure time by a charming waterfall?" Lien stretched her neck languidly and slipped the end of her tail into the water, as though she had indeed just arrived for a bit of a bath.

"I see no poor creature here, only a traitorous lizard," Temeraire replied in a low voice.

"Traitorous? Me?" Her red eyes widened. "It was you and your precious captain who became traitors to your own nation, were you not?"

"Not that _you_ had not profited from our treason," Temeraire snapped.

"Oh, I have, I have," she dipped a few of her talons into the river, then lifting her foreleg, watched the water drip from them, as though she had all the time in the world. "But, I am sorry to say, I have gained nothing by recuperating from that horrible illness… my master still got defeated and banished…"

Temeraire snorted. "Apparently you cannot take care of any of your masters."

At this, Lien puffed up her ruff and growled at him, baring her teeth, her sophisticated façade vanishing without a trace.

Laurence put a soothing hand on his dragon's foreleg, trying to warn him not to go too far but be cautious with Lien, but Temeraire either did not notice or pretended not to, for he stepped forward and looked Lien deep in the eye. "You still have not told me what you are doing here. Surely you have not come as far as Australia for a bit of sightseeing?"

"No," she shook her head, quite visibly willing herself to calm down and once again give the impression of a princess among dragons, "I have come to settle an old matter between us."

"And old matter? What do you _still_ want from us?" Temeraire grunted.

"What? Let us see… for you to be truly miserable. Remember what I told you in Istanbul? I wanted you to be disgraced, bereft of friends, your nation cast down, your allies drawn away… I told you I wanted to see you living in some dark and lonely corner of the earth… and guess what I have found out? That you have been disgraced, but only a bit, that some of your friends have left you, but not all, and that you two… you and your pathetic little captain are still together, living your happy little lives while my first master died and my second was banished, covered in shame! Your nation has not been cast down, your allies not drawn away, and guess what else I found out at Waterloo? That your daughter, that ugly red and black striped half-bred can use the divine wind better than you can, you pathetic disgrace to the name of Celestial!"

"Oh, indeed? She can? Perhaps even better than _you_?" Temeraire suggested, looking thoroughly proud. At Lien's reluctance to answer, Laurence assumed that his dragon had managed to strike home.

"Then I am very proud of her," Temeraire continued. "And don't you dare call my Gwendolyn an ugly half-bred, do you hear me?"

"Oh, I do hear you," Lien leaned forward, her eyes reduced to slits, "but understand that this is the last time I will hear anything from you."

"Why, is your hearing failing with age?" Temeraire challenged.

"No, you imbecile, I meant you will not live long enough to say anything else for me to hear," she hissed. "Your captain goes first, so that you too get a chance to feel what it is like to lose him… then you too will die."

"Don't you dare so much as touch Laurence!" Temeraire roared, his voice laced with the promise of the divine wind.

At that moment a shot rang in the air and Lien hissed in pain – young Higgins had for once not missed his target, Emily must have been a good teacher to him.

"You little sod…" the female dragon lunged towards the rock Higgins was hiding behind, but Temeraire was quicker and with his own body shielded the bushes and rocks that served as hiding places for his crew.

"Oh, all right… I am leaving the little sod," Lien's lips curved into a nasty grin, and before Temeraire could have done anything, she let go of the divine wind towards Laurence whom Temeraire, in his desperate attempt to save young Higgins, had left standing by the falls all alone.

oOo

"They should have returned two weeks ago," Captain Jacobs stated grimly.

"They might have just got lost. They might return any second," Captain Bowles said, leisurely leaning back in his seat, looking outrageously like someone who had not a care in the world. Emily felt like knocking him down, but the captain was seated too far away from her.

"And what if they don't return?" Lieutenant Beckett raised her voice. "What if they got into trouble? What if they need help?"

"I believe, gentlemen, the solution is easy," Captain Black, the oldest officer at the covert, and the only senior captain with three golden stripes on his shoulder, declared with finality. "We must send a retrieval team after them. Two smaller dragons, if you please, leaving tomorrow morning. I want volunteers," he looked around expectantly.

For a long moment no one moved, no one's hand rose into the air. The dining room was so silent that even the buzzing of a fly could have been heard.

"No one?" Emily caught herself standing on her feet. "Where is your famous courage, gentlemen? Or did that courage never exist? Is that why you all came to the back of beyond to do _construction works_ while there was a war being fought in Europe? Because it was safer and more comfortable here? For Christ's sake, I would go after them alone if I were not seven months pregnant!" She looked around with disgust. "Is it because Temeraire is a trouble maker the Admiralty sent here to get rid of, and because Laurence is regarded as a traitor? Tell you what, you brave officers of His Majesty's Aerial Corps, Captain Laurence and Temeraire have done more for England and for the whole world than all of you put together, and you would simply let them down because they are… disreputable? Come on, show me your famous courage, the courage you all have been so proud of, and find them, damn you!" With a sigh, she added, "Please."

Some of the officers cleared their throat, someone coughed, then finally Captain Bowles stood up. "Regulus and I will go."

"Emeritus and I will go too," Captain Parker agreed, her expression solemn. "And Lieutenant Roland is right, we all should be ashamed, gentlemen. It is not about doing a favour to a traitor but helping a comrade in arms."

Emily nodded towards Parker with a hint of a smile, although it was torture for her to even force a smile on her face under the circumstances. Fear clutched at her heart with a thousand icy fingers – fear that she would never see him again, that she would never have a chance to tell him the truth… fear that she would never be able to show him their baby.

She forced herself to think positively – they might have just lost track of time or wandered too far north, nothing really dangerous could have happened to them: this was Australia, with no indigenous dragons, no great beasts to threaten anyone in the company of a Celestial… And still, her too vivid imagination kept painting pictures of horror before her eyes: Laurence sprawled on a rock, having fallen from a cliff; Laurence washed away by a stream… But surely, Temeraire would have saved his captain from tumbling down a cliff or being snatched away by the water…

Rubbing the small of her back, Emily stood up and headed for the exit. Outside the winter sky was already speckled with myriads of stars, the Southern Cross most easily recognisable. For a moment she wondered whether somewhere, out in the wilderness, her captain was looking at the same constellation… for some reason the thought gave her a bit of a comfort.

oOo

Weeks had passed and Captain Bowles, who had gone in the north-western direction aboard Regulus, returned with no results. After his arrival the atmosphere at the covert was rather subdued for a few days, but no one could have been more subdued than Emily. Now all her hope was Captain Parker of Emeritus, and naturally, her recently awoken faith. Reverend Whitwell had got so used to seeing her in the church every day that he no longer cast her disapproving glances, and after a while she even wondered whether the old man's strict features had softened when passing by her, and whether that funny little twitch of his lips had been a smile.

It happened on the 5th July that a rather haggard looking Captain Parker dismounted from Emeritus, followed by all six members of her crew, every one of them wearing grim expressions along with several streaks of dirt. Without even greeting anyone, Parker marched into the dining room that had become some sort of a counsel room for the inhabitants of the covert, and in a mere few minutes all officers who had seen her arrival gathered around her.

With a heavy heart and trembling legs Emily entered the building, but instead of taking a place at the table, she lagged behind, leaning against the wall near the door. She was already prepared to hear the same news Bowles had brought them: no trace of Temeraire or the crew, but at least leaving her a faint ray of hope that even if Parker had not found them, a third expedition perhaps might.

Parker, a strict looking woman in her forties, cleared her throat. "We have flown northwards along the coast then searched a bit deeper in the continent, and well… I must say we have found something."

"Something? But what?" a young lieutenant chimed in.

A spark of hope glowed in Emily's heart, only to be extinguished a second later.

"The carcass of a dragon of around Temeraire's size, I'm afraid," Parker replied. "It was lying on the bank of a river, we do not know where exactly it died, the river might have carried its body several miles, if not a hundred."

"Are you sure it was Temeraire?" Captain Black asked, but Emily knew it was just out of politeness – there was no other dragon of Temeraire's size in Australia.

"Quite sure, I'm afraid," Parker nodded. "Although we could not see his face or even his hide… those had already been eaten away, thanks to the humidity and the dingoes, I presume… most of what is left of it is the ribcage with some decaying meat on it… deformed beyond recognition."

Emily had not felt sick for several months, but now she was vomiting into a flowerpot, tears running down her cheeks. For a minute or two her own retching had muffled Parker and the other's words, but when her stomach was finally empty and the welcome helping hand of Lieutenant Jessica Beckett was supporting her, Emily's hearing returned, even if her vision remained somewhat blurry.

"No, no, we have looked for them, but no sign of the crew…" Parker continued talking somewhere in the distance, "we were looking for signal fires, but there had been lots of rains around there recently, no wonder if they could not find any kindling dry enough… supposing they _are_ alive at all… which, in all honesty… I seriously doubt. Whatever force had killed Temeraire, must have killed them too."

Emily found herself shaking in Beckett's arms, her hands clutching her belly, a howl of misery filling the dining room, and it took her several moments to realise it had been she howling. As sobs raked her body, she completely let go of herself, and Jessica Beckett's thin arms could no longer hold her up; she sank to her knees, the stone floor piercingly cold through the texture of her dress, but she did not even feel it; voices of concern sounding all around her, but she did not even hear them.

For her, the world had ended, and there was no God to convince her that it was otherwise.

Someone else, a stronger man joined Beckett in helping to support her, and in those strong male arms Emily gladly slipped into unconsciousness, her last thought a hope that she would never wake up again.

oOo

**A/N: comments are most appreciated. :)**


	10. Les Miserables

**Chapter 10**

**Les Misèrables**

Laurence had been counting the days since he had awoken from what the others claimed to be a three-day-long stupor, and now his count was at eighty-four. Eighty-four days of worry for Temeraire's life and health, the first two weeks of which Laurence himself had spent in a shape bad enough to earn constant anxious glances from his crewmembers.

He had been lucky though – thanks to his battle-honed reflexes, he had managed to drop to his stomach right as Lien had had sent the divine wind his direction, but even this way he had suffered severe concussion, and acquired two broken ribs and a sprained ankle. When he had come around, he had been shocked to find himself in a cave, the rush of a waterfall nearby, and Temeraire at his side, barely alive. Someone had patched the dragon up as well as they could without a doctor on the crew and lacking proper bandages – Laurence had later spotted some of the younger officers, including Allen, missing their shirts – they had obviously sacrificed them to serve as makeshift bandages.

As soon as he had got a little better, the crewmembers recounted to him the fury with which his dragon had attacked the white Celestial, believing his captain to be dead. Young Higgins had eagerly given him every gory detail of the battle that had ended with Lien falling dead into the river and Temeraire hardly able to crawl. The crew had somehow managed to convince the dragon to try and drag himself into the cave nearby to be at least sheltered from cold and rain, and they had had Temeraire do it just in time, for a few hours later the dragon could no longer move.

From the day he had awoken, Laurence kept talking to his dragon, even though he had been sure Temeraire could not hear him. He had even been reprimanded by his first officer for over-exerting himself in his attempt to coax a word from Temeraire, but Laurence had not cared much for his own health, only for the dragon's.

He had been awake for three days when Temeraire had first talked to him, though the unfortunate creature had only managed to say, 'You are alive. You are alive…'

For almost two months Temeraire had awakened for only a few minutes every day, accepted a bit of food the others had managed to hunt for him, then fallen back into stupor.

Allen had, of course, tried to have the crew light bonfires to help a possible retrieval team find them, but it was almost constantly raining outside, and as soon as the fire had been lit, it had been snuffed out again. Not that any team with any dragon _could_ have helped Temeraire fly back to the covert – they were too far away for that and Temeraire too sick to take wing. Laurence had been hoping though that if they were found, they would at least get a competent dragon surgeon who could speed up the recovery – if there was still a chance of a recovery to be made.

In the first two months, Temeraire had looked weaker and ate less every day, but Laurence had not given up on him. He had brought with himself a collection of Shakespeare plays from the covert and read them out to Temeraire, undaunted by the dragon's lack of response.

It had happened some time in late June that Temeraire suddenly raised his head with the air of someone who had just awoken from a deep slumber and gave his captain a puzzled look. "Laurence, you surely would not kill yourself if Emily died, would you?"

"What?" the man had given the dragon an equally puzzled look, while his heart had soared at hearing more than two words from Temeraire.

"Well… Romeo killed himself. And then Juliet too. You two surely would not be this stupid, would you?"

"Oh, no, my dear… besides… I am not exactly a Romeo… but in Emily I do see a bit of Juliet, I think… she is just as headstrong…"

"Yes, headstrong, but she loves you just like Juliet loved Romeo… and for this love I think she deserves to be married to you the proper way… with all the touching and egg-making involved."

Laurence had felt himself blush a bit. "I think… you are right, my dear. I have had enough time to think of Emily ever since we left the covert… more than two months… and I have realised you were right… A vow made to myself out of stupid pride and hurt does not mean anything as long as there is love that is stronger than pride."

"Oh," Temeraire had breathed, "you do intend to touch her, then?"

Laurence had blushed an even deeper shade of red and checked whether the crewmembers had been far away not to overhear their words, then, with a smile gracing his lips, he said, "I do."

"Laurence, oh Laurence, that is absolutely wonderful," Temeraire had replied. "You know that the only thing that kept me alive was the hope to see you and Emily happy in the end?"

"Oh, my dear," the captain had pressed his face to the dragon's neck. "I am happy already… happy to see you alive and getting better by the minute."

Three weeks had passed since this conversation, and finally Laurence felt sanguine enough of Temeraire's recovery to ask him whether he felt up to a flight back to Sydney.

"Of course, Laurence, I will try, but I am still a bit tired, so I think we will have to rest quite often. But we can be home in three or four weeks, I believe."

"Thank heaven," Laurence replied, gently patting the dragon's flank, amused to realise that Temeraire had called the covert 'home'. He himself had never thought of the Sydney covert as home, but with the prospect of marrying Emily and living a proper family life with her there, he began to see the place in a wholly different light. "Then pray have a good night's sleep, my dear, for tomorrow morning we are leaving. Home."

oOo

Ensconced in her little room, Emily had completely lost track of time. She did not know whether two, three or four weeks had passed since receiving the dire news, neither did she know whether she was at the end of her eighth month or the beginning of her ninth… all she knew was that life had lost its meaning.

Now she would never have a chance to tell him that the child was his, she would never see him outraged and joyful at the same time learning about his paternity, she would never see him play with the child, take him or her on rides on Temeraire… He was no more, and Temeraire was no more.

Sometimes she thought she had been foolish to be afraid of his possible rage over learning the truth, for his rage, even his contempt for her would have been nothing… absolutely nothing compared to his death. She would rather see him scandalised, hear him shout at her, call her every possible name from tramp through whore to slut… she would rather have him hate her with a fiery passion than know he was dead. Now she found herself thinking she would give anything just to have him alive: she would even marry him and for ever bear the lack of his touch, just to have him near… but it was no longer possible.

After the first shock in the covert dining room, Emily found that she could not cry. Her tears stubbornly refused to come, though it would have probably been a relief to cry. She felt too hollow for even that.

Day after day Lieutenant Jessica Beckett visited her, trying to coax her out of her little hideaway, or to convince her to eat at least, but Emily felt no hunger and no desire to go out among people. People outside would not understand her – for them life went on, they continued working, joking, loving… how would they understand that she no longer felt capable of any of these?

It was with a great effort that Jessica talked her into taking a bath at least every second day and even for that Emily needed the female lieutenant's help – she barely felt strong enough to get out of her clothes and into the tub. When Jessica was not around – and she could only visit her in the mornings and in the evenings, before and after work – Emily did not touch the meals brought to her, and only ate a few bites in Jessica's presence, out of politeness and a fake display of gratitude. Because Emily was not in the least grateful for Jessica's bothersome visits – she longed to be left alone, alone with her grief, and not being forced to eat and bath and change clothes… what for? She no longer wanted to live.

She had not even noticed that she had forgone her regular habit of gently stroking her belly, the movements of the child barely sensed by her anymore – they had become too natural to offer a distraction and no longer induced her to loving caresses. Under different circumstances she would have loathed herself for the impassivity she had begun to feel for the baby, but she did not even notice she had become impassive.

Day passed after day, winter slowly yielded to an early spring, but for Emily it was all the same.

Some time at the beginning of August – or was it still the end of July? Emily did not know – there was a knock on her door. At broad daylight. Jessica always came in the mornings and the evenings and Emily was not used to having other visitors. With slight surprise but without much curiosity, she managed a raspy 'Come in', and was even more surprised to find old Reverend Whitwell standing at the door.

She gave him a tired-questioning glance as he closed the door behind him and drew nearer. "May I sit down?" he asked, his voice unusually gentle, Emily was not used to hearing him talk gently – most of his sermons had been delivered in a harsh, reprimanding tone.

"Of course," she muttered, gesturing towards the only chair in the room; she herself was seated on the edge of the bed.

"Thank you," he pulled the chair closer and sat down, facing her. "You surely know why I am here."

"No, not really," she shook her head.

"I have not seen you in the church for weeks. I got worried about you, dear child."

"I am sorry to have caused you any inconvenience, Reverend, I have not been feeling well," Emily replied, more to her own knees to than to the vicar.

"I have heard the fate befallen your crew and the dragon Temeraire. Please, accept my heartfelt condolences."

Emily gulped, tears welling up in her eyes for the first time in weeks, but she blinked them back and remained silent.

"Dear child, I know it is always very hard to console those who mourn, but it is my task, bestowed upon me by the Lord to try at least. You must have faith in the love of the Lord, and in His mercy…"

"Mercy? What mercy?" she looked up, directly into the old man's watery blue eyes. "Had He been merciful, had His love truly been that great, he would not have taken Will from me!" She had not intended to cry, but by the time these words had left her lips, she found herself trembling and weeping, her head bent, the old vicar's hand gently, reassuringly resting on her shoulder.

"_Will_, dear child?" he asked quietly. "You mean, William Laurence, that nice young man who always attends the Sunday services?"

With a frown she looked up again. "Attend_ed_, Reverend. He will never attend them again."

The vicar sighed, and for a moment it struck Emily that he had referred to Will as 'that nice young man'. Her lips turned into a sarcastic grimace – Will had been far from young, but the vicar, almost seventy himself, must have regarded him as that. And as senile as Whitwell was, no surprise he had accidentally referred to Laurence in present tense.

"He will never attend the services again," she repeated, her voice wavering, "but surely… surely… he must have been accepted in Heaven, right, Reverend? His faith was so strong… his soul so pure… and it was only I who sullied him… he would never have sinned with me… oh, Reverend… he will never have a chance to forgive me now…"

The old man gave her a politely confused look, and Emily found she could not stand his stare. She cast her eyes down and her hand instinctively began caressing the huge bulge of her belly. Once again she felt a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and the vicar said, in a voice softer than ever, "Am I right assuming that he was the father?"

Mutely, Emily nodded. It took her several moments to regain her voice against the imaginary fingers compressing her gullet. "But he never knew… never even suspected…"

"Never suspected?" Whitwell's voice sounded too surprised and confused to ignore, and Emily glanced up to meet his eyes, feeling her cheeks burn both with hot tears and shame. "May I… may I make a private confession, Reverend?"

The old man nodded. "Certainly, if you feel the need to… but you know it is not compulsory… as we say, 'all may, no one must, some should'. If you have confessed your sins to the Lord, he has forgiven them…"

"I have, Reverend, still… I fear my confession to Him was not enough… apparently I am not good at this sort of thing… praying. But perhaps if you too ask Him to forgive me… then He will. Really. Properly. For now… I think… He has not forgiven me… because if He had… He would not have punished me so…" Fresh tears ran down her cheeks and she fixed her stare on the table where a still untouched plate of bread and butter lay, Jessica must have slipped it there in the morning when Emily had either been asleep or in a state close to slumber – sometimes she could not even distinguish between sleeping and sinking into some stupor-like state. "Reverend… I have sinned against God and against William Laurence… I am guilty of the sin of lust and fornication…"

The reverend, always so strict and harsh and condemning, listened to her without a word of interruption.

"…and he will never know now, Reverend," she finished after several minutes. "I can never tell him…"

"Dear child… I am sure he knows. If his faith was indeed that strong… which I have no reason to doubt, then God has taken him up to His Kingdom, and from there he can see you, and I am sure he is proud of the child growing inside of you and wishes only the best for the both of you. That is why you must start to eat again. Eat and leave this room, live your life… live for your child. For your and his child."

Through a veil of tears, Emily smiled at the vicar. "Thank you, Reverend. I shall try. I want to make Will proud… of both of us." With that she stood up and stepped to the table to pick up the slice of bread, but barely had she taken a bite when a sharp pain ran across her abdomen, making her drop the bread and double up.

"Dear child, are you all right?" the vicar sprang up, amazingly fast for his age.

"Not really…" she panted, watching a small pool of sticky fluid gather around her ankles. "I think… I'm in labour."

oOo

It was on the 8th August that they touched down in the covert by Sydney, much to the cheering and amazed yelps of their fellow aviators.

"Man, we thought you were dead!" Captain Parker shouted at them before any of the crew had a chance to dismount.

"Yes, how on earth did you survive? And where the hell have you been?" a lieutenant added eagerly.

"And whose was that carcass that looked like Temeraire's?" came another question from the middle of the crowd.

Temeraire, almost back in top condition, drew himself up proudly. "We were far in the north and I fought with Lung Tien Lien, an evil Celestial who nearly killed me, but I killed her instead, and I was very ill for a while, and poor Laurence too, but now we are healthy and back and…"

"Captain Laurence, do you feel up to giving us a detailed report?" Captain Black asked, almost shouted, to outcry the buzz of the assembly.

"Yes, of course," Laurence replied, as loudly as he could without shouting, then turned to Allen and said quietly, "will you please find Emily for me? I need to talk to her."

Allen nodded and slid down on Temeraire's side, vanishing into the crowd, while Laurence let himself be lowered to the ground by his dragon and escorted into the covert dining room by the cheering aviators. He had never felt so loved by his Sydney fellows before – they had always made him feel a certain degree of contempt at being a traitor, but now all that seemed to have vanished. Laurence was touched – apparently they had worried about them, perhaps even mourned them… His heart clenched at the thought that Emily too must have thought them dead, which only strengthened his need to talk to her, the sooner the better.

Hoping that Allen would find her quick enough, Laurence summarised the events in five minutes, then excused himself from his audience, claiming to be overly exhausted and in dire need of a bath. Thankfully the others proved understanding enough not keep him.

In front of the building that housed the dining room, he ran into Allen whose face was as white as a sheet. "What happened, Mr. Allen?" he asked, frightened by his first lieutenant's expression.

"Sir, I've looked all around for her and did not find her a while, so finally I thought she might be in her room and went there only to find the midwife leaving the room with a basin and towels and I stopped her and…" his voice trailed off and he ran a nervous hand across his unruly blond locks.

"The _midwife_?" Laurence breathed. "Is it time already…?"

Allen nodded shakily. "And she's been in labour for twenty-two hours already, according to that woman, and… she is… I'm afraid to say, sir… not doing well."

"What… do you mean… she is not doing well?" Laurence swallowed hard with a terrible feeling of premonition spreading in the pit of his stomach. "Of course she _cannot be_ doing well, she is giving birth, for Christ's sake!"

"Yes, sir, but… that is not what I meant, I meant she was doing worse than she should be in the circumstances…" the young lieutenant rambled, "the midwife says… that Emily must have… must have… lost the will to live…"

"What?" Laurence muttered. Upon not receiving an instant reply, he shook Allen by the shoulders. "WHAT?"

"I am sorry, sir… apparently she had given up on eating properly for a while… and she is so very weak that… she very likely will not make it."

Laurence let go of Allen's shoulders as though they had burned him and staggered backwards several steps. "No… oh, no…"

"What happened, Laurence?" Temeraire asked, a few dozen yards away, currently being stripped of his harness.

When the captain did not reply, did not even move towards him just stared at a spot on the ground with haunted eyes, Temeraire gently but deliberately pushed his harnessmen away and with a few long strides arrived at Laurence's side. "What happened? You look ill…"

"Emily…" the man muttered, his eyes still fixed upon the ground.

"What of her? Where is she?"

"She is… having the egg. Right now. But…" the captain found himself searching for words, his tongue tied, reluctant to cooperate.

"But what?" the dragon pressed.

"The egg… the egg… is killing her," Laurence said finally, to Temeraire's forelegs, unable to look him in the eye.

"What?" the dragon gasped. "What do you mean it is killing her?"

"She is dying!" Laurence snapped, all his reserve flying out an imaginary window.

"Dying? But… but…"

"Please, Temeraire… not now!" Laurence hissed through gritted teeth, angry tears welling up his eyes.

"What not _now_? But Laurence, you have to go to her! _Right_ _now_!"

"How could I?" the man finally looked up at the dragon, tears blurring his vision. "Men are not supposed to be there for deliveries, besides… I am just an outsider! Just her captain. Nothing else."

"Oh, you are quite mistaken, Laurence!" Temeraire's voice rose in pitch. "I am sorry to have to break my promise to Emily of not telling you, but under the circumstances, I feel I simply must… and I am sorry to tell you with everyone around to hear, for it is quite embarrassing, but… you are by no means an outsider, Laurence, for _you_ gave her that egg!"

A soft thump signalled that one of the harnessmen had dropped a bigger piece of armour, while both Laurence and Allen stared at Temeraire and said in unison, "WHAT?"

oOo

**A/N: Ahem. Finally he knows. How will he react?**

**Comments are always welcome. :)**


	11. Broken Vows

**A/N: thanks to everyone for the comments.**

Replies to unsigned reviews:

_Nimbus Llewellyn_: yeah, I couldn't help it, I'm a die-hard Star Wars fan. ;)

_scarylady_: I'm glad you enjoyed the 'firm behind' part. :) Temeraire is always fun to write about, and I just love his interactions with Laurence, those are always my favourite parts in the books. I especially enjoy their interactions in book one when Temeraire is still very young and unsuspecting. XD

**So, we've reached the final chapter, folks. I hope you all enjoyed the ride!**

**Chapter 11**

**Broken Vows**

Looking around, he saw dumbfounded expressions on the faces of his crewmembers and that of others loitering before the building complex, but Laurence was sure none of them could be nearly as dumbfounded as he was.

He must have misunderstood Temeraire's words – the dragon had not meant what he had said… had he?

"Temeraire… what is this whole gibberish?" he asked, exasperated.

"Beg your pardon, Laurence, it is no gibberish," the dragon drew himself up. "Her egg is yours."

"But… but Temeraire… that is quite impossible," Laurence replied in a wavering, almost timid voice, his cheeks burning worse than ever. "I have never… never slept with Emily!"

"Oh, but yes, you have," Temeraire insisted, "at least… you _did_ _sleep_, just… not _with_ her… but still… from a certain point of view you did…"

"Did what?" Laurence ran his fingers across his matted hair, "I do not understand a word of what you are rambling here!"

"Well," Temeraire said, looking slightly guilty all of a sudden, "do you recall the day you were shot by poor Higgins?"

Laurence nodded jerkily.

"Good. You might not remember, but the doctor gave you a doze of laudanum, so you slept all the night through, but Emily, who took care of you… and I am sorry to say, Laurence, it was she who first took care of you, not Gordon… So Emily did not sleep at all, but… she did… something else."

Laurence was at the end of his tether. "I still do not understand!"

"Well…" Temeraire began polishing his breastplate as a diversion, "you might not _understand_, but you surely _remember _that dream you had that night… the one you told me about…"

Laurence blushed an even deeper shade of red, fully aware of the ever-growing crowd around them. With another jerky nod, he confirmed that he remembered.

"Yes, that one…" Temeraire carried on with the air of someone who had completely forgotten about their audience, "you must know that it was not a dream at all."

With bulging eyes and mouth hanging open, Laurence stared at his dragon, whispers of the onlookers barely reaching his ears. "You mean… you mean that she… she really…?"

"Oh, come on, Laurence, what could you expect of her?" Temeraire sighed. "The poor girl wanted to have your egg but you refused her! You cannot blame her for trying…"

"Cannot… Heavens, Temeraire!" Laurence slapped his forehead. "She… she… And you! You knew this all along and never told me?!"

The dragon looked away, his expression guiltier than ever. "I promised her not to tell you as long as _she _was willing to tell you… and see, now I have broken my promise…"

"As long as she was willing to tell me? But she never told me!" Laurence snapped.

"She wanted to. Remember what you told me just before Lien turned up? That Emily tried to tell you something… twice, actually."

The captain felt as though he had been punched across the face, hard. Every little piece of the puzzle fell into place – Emily's guilty looks and uneasiness around him, her lies about the paternity of her child, her regular visits to the church… even her anxious, almost frightened expression when she had tried to tell him something right before they had left for their latest mission…

Covering his mouth against a howl of misery wanting to escape, but having no such luck at holding back his tears, Laurence backed away from Temeraire.

"Hey, where are you going?" the dragon called out to him.

"Where?" Laurence choked. "To Emily, of course…" With that, amidst the murmur of the crowd, he bolted away.

o

He did not remember when he had last run this fast, every second apart from Emily feeling a waste, and yet, despite his desperate need to be at her side as soon as possible, something deep inside him wanted to hold him back, to delay their meeting… That little something Laurence recognised as hurt at being betrayed, used and lied to, but that little something was insignificant compared to the huge, overwhelming knowledge that Emily was carrying… no, giving birth to… _his child_.

And that she was dying.

For a moment a conversation came to his mind – the conversation in which Temeraire had asked whether he too would want to die if Emily did, just like Romeo had wanted to end his life upon believing Juliet to be dead. At that time Laurence had answered with perfect naturalness that he would not, even the idea had seemed ridiculous, but now a nasty feeling deep inside him made him think that if Emily were to die, his life would lose its meaning.

Every step he took towards the barracks was a torture, filled with dread that he might arrive late, that he would never have a chance to tell her that he was not mad at her, that he understood her motives even though no sensible man in his place would… that he wanted her to hold out, for him, for their child, for a happier future they could build together…

Laurence had long given up on having a family of his own. With Edith Galman as his fiancée, he had been dreaming of a warm nest he could return to after long months at sea, of children he would find running to meet him at the garden gate, little hands stretched his way, cheerful voices enquiring what he had brought them from a land far, far away… But then he had met Temeraire and Edith had married Bertram Woolvey.

From Jane he had never even hoped of receiving an heir, neither had he hoped it from Brianna, and still, upon finding out what could have been if Brianna had not so cruelly refused to give him one, he had felt his soul break into pieces.

He had long decided that wishing for an heir was folly, after all, who would want to bear _his_ child, the child of a convicted traitor?

And then came along Emily, wanting his child, and he had turned her down, out of respect for his own vow, out of respect for her reputation, and out of fear that she too would only leave him… But she had not. She had loved him, remained faithful to him, and had decided to bear his child, even against his will… Her desire to have his child had been strong enough to use him and lie to him – things he, under different circumstances, would have loathed – yes, she had done despicable things, but for a greater good… and out of love.

Laurence could not let her efforts go to waste now, he could not let his own dreams and hopes, the ones he had long buried within himself but had resurfaced now, crumble to pieces…

He had never been this close to having a family of his own, and he did not want to lose it even before he actually had it.

o

Panting after the long run and having climbed the stairs, he knocked on Emily's door, and not even waiting for a reply, practically burst into the room.

"But sir…!" a baffled physician said, fixing him with shocked eyes from behind his spectacles, while the midwife, who had been changing wet clothes on her patient's forehead, dropped the one she had been holding.

"Excuse me…" Laurence gasped for breath, suddenly self-conscious in his ragged clothing, unruly hair and lack of shave, "I did not mean to enter with such haste, but…"

"But what are you thinking?" the midwife snapped at him. "There is a poor woman in labour here, so I demand that you leave at once, sir!"

"I will not leave," Laurence replied, forcing himself to calm down, and softly closed the door behind him.

"What… what do you mean that you will not leave?" the doctor stood up from the bedside, trying to look as menacing as he could with all his hundred and ten pounds and a height barely reaching Laurence's shoulders. Laurence recognised him as the one who had treated him in November after he had been brought back to the covert, barely conscious with the shot wound on his shoulder.

"You heard it well, doctor," he said, trying to sound as polite as possible, out of respect and gratitude for the physician who had helped him heal all those months ago, "I am staying with Emily… if she wants me to." With that Laurence strode up to the bed and knelt down, taking Emily's hand. She did not seem to notice it – she did not seem to have heard the exchange of words or seen him enter at all – she was close to unconsciousness, her eyes shut, dark shadows under them, her face shining with sweat.

"Emily…" he called her name, gently squeezing her hand. "Emily, dearest, I am here… do you hear me?"

It took her several seconds and great effort to open her eyes, and through half-closed eyelids her vision seemed glazed. For a while it seemed to Laurence she did not even recognise him and he could not blame her for it in his current state of disorder, but finally her gaze cleared a bit with recognition and she muttered, "Will… is… is this the end? Am I dead already?"

"No, no, dearest, you are very much alive… and so am I," Laurence replied, realising that she believed him to be a ghost.

Again it took her some time to comprehend what he had said, but soon a small, weak smile appeared on her lips. "Will… is that you? Is that really you?"

"Yes, dearest… it is me." He lifted her right hand to his lips and gently kissed it. "I am here, alive, and I am not leaving you."

For a second her smile widened, her eyes lit up, then the corners of her mouth drooped. "And Temeraire? He _is_ dead, isn't he?"

Laurence shook his head. "No, he is alive and doing well… and he has just told me… _everything_."

"Sir, I really must insist that you leave…" the doctor began, only to gain a piercing glance from Laurence.

"Everything?" Emily sighed. "So you know now…? You know that my baby is yours…?"

A sharp intake of breath signalled the midwife's shock, but Laurence did not waste a second to send her a withering glance too.

"Yes, dearest, I know. Oh, Emily… if I had known earlier… if I had known…"

"…you would have been very angry with me," she whispered.

Laurence shook his head, tears filling his eyes. "No, my love." Blinking back the tears, not wanting Emily to see them and feel discouraged by them, he kissed her hand again. "I am not angry."

"Sir, even if you _are_ the father, you must know that it is not proper for you to be here for…" the doctor spoke up again, only to be silenced by Laurence's stern "I do not give a damn about propriety, doctor, and I am sure as hell staying!"

Emily let out a small chuckle, then suddenly squeezed his hand, stronger than anyone had ever squeezed it before, and slightly lifted herself from the pillow, her teeth gritted. When Laurence thought his hand was about to go numb, she slackened her grip on it and slumped back onto her pillow, panting heavily. "Will… It hurts so much…" she mouthed to him, her voice not even a whisper.

"It will be over soon, my love, you have to hold out," he replied, admiring her strength for bearing the pain without so much as a moan. "Please… hold out."

She nodded shakily, only to double up once again a moment later, holding his hand in a vice like grip, and screaming, as though her earlier resolve of not wanting him to hear her scream had vanished, and Laurence caught himself pushed aside by the doctor, but he did not let go of her hand. Now, forced into a strange half-kneeling, half-crouching position by the headboard while both the doctor and the midwife bustled about Emily, all he could do was offer her his hand to squeeze and pray to God to save her… for he could not lose her, not now, not like this, not when he had finally found love!

He caught himself constantly switching between silent words of prayer and encouraging words he said aloud, and after a while he no longer knew when he prayed and when he repeated to Emily to hold out because he loved her, his own words mingling with the midwife and the doctor's orders 'Push, Miss Roland, push now!'; Emily's moans were getting ever more frequent with not even seconds of relief between them; and Laurence no longer followed what exactly was happening, all he knew his lips were moving, beseeching, _O Lord, please, do not take her from me, do not take either of them from me…_

And finally the room was filled with not moans, not screams, but a faint, but ever-strengthening sound, a baby-cry.

o

"A boy, Miss Roland," the doctor announced.

"Do you hear it, Emily?" Laurence breathed. "We have a son, a beautiful, healthy baby boy…"

She fixed him with a tired look and Laurence was not even sure she had heard him or had managed to understand him, but finally she whispered, "A boy, is it?"

Laurence, despite his heroic attempt at holding back his tears, could no longer stop them, and shaking with silent sobs, nodded, showering her hand with kisses. "I know…" he mumbled, "I know you wanted a girl, but…"

"It doesn't matter," she sighed. "We can have a girl next… If you want to."

Laurence looked into her eyes, her slightly misty eyes that were glinting with some unearthly joy, and felt his lips tuck into the brightest smile ever. "Only if you will have me… as your husband."

"Only if you will oblige me in bed," she whispered, her sweaty face tucking into an impish grin.

"That is a first, sir," the doctor remarked, "women in this situation usually scream at men and threaten them with a horrible death if they ever so much as touch them again…"

Laurence was simply too happy to reprimand the doctor for his cheek and only said, "But my Emily is not like others. As to your conditions, dearest…" he turned back to Emily, ignoring their unwanted audience, "I shall certainly oblige you, as often as you wish."

"And what about… your vow?"

"Hang the vow… besides, I have already broken it… I broke it the night of the conception…"

"No, you did not," Emily breathed as the midwife laid the baby in the crook of her arm. With a radiant smile at the whimpering little boy, she carried on, "_you_ did not touch me that night, only I touched you."

Laurence pulled himself up from his kneeling position, suddenly feeling his legs horribly stiff and prickling with pain although he had so far not paid them any attention, and sat down on the edge of the bed, reaching out to touch one of the baby's tiny fists. On an instinct the little boy grabbed his father's index finger and squeezed it, sending a so far unknown warmth through his body and soul. His son. _Their son_.

"Well," Laurence said, his throat closing a bit with emotion, "I do believe that a certain body part of mine was definitely touching yours…" He felt himself flush, but carried on, "So… I _have_ broken the vow. Unknowingly, but I have. And I am so glad I did... for without it, we would not have him here… Really, what shall we name him?"

"Oh, I don't know," Emily breathed, her eyes closing with exhaustion. "I have only… come up with girl names. I was so sure it would be a girl… You decide… I don't know any decent boy names… Except William, of course…"

"There is no way I would name my son after myself," Laurence shook his head, amused. "It has been a tradition in my family to name the sons after the father or the grandfather or an uncle, but since there is no love lost between my father and me, I will not name this little one Jonathan… neither George nor Arthur after my brothers… I think my family would be scandalised to find out that I have once again rebelled against their traditions, but… I like the name Michael. None of my relations is called Michael. What do you think?"

Emily nodded with a murmur of assent, her eyes already closed. The midwife gently scooped up the baby to let the young mother sleep, and at Laurence's quiet 'May I?', she placed the little bundle into his arms.

"Here you are, sir, Michael Roland," the woman said with a half-smile.

"No, ma'am," the proud father replied, "Michael Laurence."

oOo

_Dear Mother,_

_Please forgive me for not writing any earlier, first I was too sick then too busy, but now I am making up for it by sending you the longest letter I have ever written. At least, I think it will be long, because there is so much I want to tell you!_

_First of all, in my latest letter of 30__th__ December, I only mentioned that I was pregnant but did not say anything about the father, and with a good reason: I simply did not want you to know who it was, for I was sure if __**you **__found out, __**he**__ too would find out sooner or later, and at that time I did not want him to know. Now you must be thinking that either I am raving or the father is a complete idiot to not be able to guess, but soon you will see that neither am I raving nor is he in any way retarded. He has only been duped, the poor thing, and I am ashamed to say, by me._

_So, where to begin? You would practically say 'at the beginning'. Therefore, that is what I am doing._

_I think it all started when I found out that Will had taken the cure over to France then come back and handed himself over to the authorities to be hanged. I was shocked, I was desperate, I was proud of him, but most importantly, I was in love. Yes, Mother, at the tender age of thirteen, I fell in love with my captain. Now, please do not look at me like that! I can well imagine the frown on your face, the disbelief in your eyes, and your voice shouting, 'Have you lost your mind, daughter?' I can assure you that I have not. I was head over heels in love with him, but of course, he would not even notice me, he took me for a mere child. _

_Years went by, but my feelings for him did not change, and when I received your letter with the sugar-coated order to reproduce, I knew there was only one man whose child I was willing to bear. So I asked him. He refused. Very politely, of course, but he still did. _

_I was mad. I felt humiliated. I regarded myself and my whole life a failure. And then, during a mission, Will was accidentally shot by one of our ensigns. Thankfully Temeraire and I managed to fetch a doctor to remove the bullet. Will was liberally dozed with laudanum and the doctor swore he would not awaken for half a day. And that was when I, with a heavy heart, took things into my hands. Literally. It was not difficult at all, he instinctively responded to the slightest caress, I mean, __**that part of him**__ did. It was a bit off-putting to make love to him without him so much as kissing me back or whispering my name, but it had to be done, for Excidium's sake._

_At that point I did not suspect all the moral difficulties that would later arise from my act, but in a couple of weeks I had plenty of opportunity to experience them. You cannot imagine how hard it was to walk past him every day, work beside him, look him in the eye and __**lie him in the face**__ when he asked me about the child growing inside of me. I hated myself, but I loved him and loved our child too. So, so much._

_It was my guilt that drove me to the local church, and I am happy to say that I am a believer now – it was mostly Will's faith that changed me, or the Lord's mercy in letting me witness his faith. I think you should try attending a few services yourself, Mother, especially the ones about the seven deadly sins. You might find it amusing, as I did at first, but who knows? It might touch you in some way._

_But I digress. To return to my main point, I got pregnant and I told Will it was from a random sailor to lull his suspicion, but you cannot imagine how I longed to tell him the truth all along! There were two occasions when I almost told him, but chickened out, I am most ashamed to admit. And then they – Will, Temeraire and the rest of the crew – went on a mission from which they did not return for such a long time that we, left at the covert, got worried and sent retrieval teams after them. One of the teams found a huge, decaying body of a dragon, believing it to be Temeraire, and everyone assumed that the crew had died too._

_I know what you always taught me about carrying on no matter what happens, but apparently I am not nearly as strong as you are. When I believed Will to be dead, I wanted to die. Now I am very mad at myself for having stopped eating, endangering the health of my baby, but at that time I felt that nothing mattered. I nearly managed to kill myself – at least weaken myself enough to die in childbirth, and I am sure I would have died, had Will not miraculously returned just in time. But he did, and my will to live returned as well, especially when he told me he knew everything and was not even mad at me! I thought, O dear God, how do I deserve a man like this?_

_With him at my side, I managed to gather all my strength and gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy. Yes, I know you are disappointed now, and I expect Excidium too will be once you tell him, but funnily I am not. Before the delivery, I was hoping for a daughter, but now I would not trade my baby Michael for a thousand girls!_

_Not that Will and I will not try for a girl, so never fear, I intend to give Excidium his future captain, he just needs to be patient. With the pace we are setting these days after putting Michael to sleep in the evenings, I expect to get pregnant again in a trice. After the delivery I asked the doctor how long we should wait before I was allowed to engage in intimate activities, and he said six weeks (Will blushed horribly upon hearing my question). You have no idea how long those six weeks were, especially with Will and I married two weeks after Michael's birth! It was sheer torture! But finally, a week ago, we managed to have our wedding night, and oh, Mother… I perfectly understand why you kept Will in your good graces for years… He __**really**__ knows something. Why, those things he does with his tongue… but you surely remember those if he did them to you too… but if he did not, then you must be sorry that he did not._

_So anyway, Temeraire of course was thrilled to find out that I had given birth to a boy, claiming Michael as his future captain even before he saw him. As for Temeraire wanting to see him… well, that was again something! Temeraire, not wanting to wait for Will to take the baby outside, and being as inventive as he is, knocked down the trees before my window to peer in. The poor midwife screamed upon seeing a dragon peeking through the window and the doctor fainted, so there we were, me barely conscious, Will with a bawling baby, one physician out cold and a midwife in hysterics. Not to mention that the covert's caretaker was outraged by the uprooted trees. _

_A few days later of course Will was allowed to take Michael out to the dragon grounds for Temeraire to have a closer look, and from what he recounted to me, Temeraire's first words were: 'He is a bit smelly, but at least not noisy like Catherine's egg'. And indeed, Michael is a very calm baby, he lets us sleep through the night – or do other things when we are not sleeping._

_You might wonder about the dragon corpse the retrieval team found: it turned out to be Lien, Temeraire's nasty cousin who followed him so far as Australia to take revenge on him for some long-forgotten affront. Temeraire is very proud of having defeated her._

_But I digress again, sorry. _

_Now of course everyone at the covert knows what I have done – this is partly why I have written you a detailed account, so that you hear it from me, not from a letter that someone else sends to an acquaintance in England. It so happened that Temeraire, who had known that my 'egg' was Will's from an early stage of my pregnancy, promised me to keep silent as long as I was willing to tell Will some day, but of course when he heard that I was likely to die in childbirth, he felt he had to tell Will. And am I glad he told him! The only embarrassing aspect of Temeraire telling Will was that he did it in front of half of the covert, and well, the news spread. Even now, almost two months after the delivery, I keep catching wry, disapproving glances from people, especially the older ones, but Will begs me to not pay them any attention, since he is not paying attention to the occasional laugh behind his back either (yes, some officers tend to find our little story rather amusing, and who can blame them?) _

_I am inclined to listen to Will: as long as he is not angry with me, everyone else can go to hell with their silent or not so silent reproof! And tell you what, I am glad that everyone knows – this way at least no one is scowling at Will, believing him to be the evil seducer; I could not have accepted if anyone had accused him of anything of that sort. I would rather have the whole world detest me than speak ill of my husband! As for their laughs – just let them laugh._

_Funnily it is Reverend Whitwell, whom I always regarded as the stiffest and most old-fashioned man around, who does not condemn me for what I have done – why, Will even asked me after the wedding whether he had seen it aright and old Whitwell had indeed winked at me during the ceremony (and yes, Whitwell most definitely had, and I had winked back). Naturally the ceremony itself was one of a kind: the Reverend, with a friendly gesture, married us first and only then registered Michael in the church registry so that our baby would not have to be regarded as illegitimate for a moment, and hang the opinion of everyone saying it was not completely legal, the carpers will sooner or later forget about it, and in the church registry our wedding was put down first, and only after that the name of our child, so he is a Laurence, not a Roland, full stop. _

_As for Temeraire, he naturally insisted on attending the ceremony that resulted in Whitwell having both wings of the church door opened and Temeraire crouching down before the stairs, peering into the building all along. Mind you, this drove quite a few civilian guests into the vestry!_

_Now, as a mother of seven weeks, I feel inclined to stay away from Corps duties for a while, despite what I told Will in the third month of my pregnancy. I never imagined that being a mother required this much attention, but strangely I do not mind – I find it entertaining, I have even learned a few lullabies, would you believe it? My singing voice has always been quite horrible, but Michael seems to be enjoying it. His favourite pastime is eating, of course – typical male, loving his stomach above everything else. I have just put him down after a longish nursing, he barely wanted to let go of me even after he had finished eating, apparently he loves hanging on my breasts just as much as his father does… _

_Oh, you should see him now, lying next to Will, both of them asleep (mind you, it is three in the morning), they are so sweet, my two greatest loves in the world! Poor Will, he must be so exhausted – after every day of work and every night of neatly fulfilling his duties as a husband, he even willingly takes part in helping around Michael. If someone a year ago had told me I would see my captain changing nappies, I would have laughed them in the face, thinking them to be lunatics. But now I know it is not lunacy – it is the truth, and it is more beautiful than anything I could ever dream of. Will loves me, truly loves me, he claims to have loved me for quite a while, so pray do not even assume the possibility of marriage out of honour only. _

_I know my news must be shocking to you, dear Mother, but please, try to be happy for me, for I could not be happier than I am now._

_Lots of love,_

_Your daughter, Emily Laurence_

_September 27, 1816_

_P.S. I have enclosed a letter from Will, he asked me to ask you to forward it to his mother at Wollaton Hall, I expect he wants to tell her about the wonderful turn in his life. Perhaps, if your duties allow, you could visit her in person – I believe you two will have a lot to talk about as in-laws and grandmothers. Should you meet Lady Allendale, please, let her know that I wore the garnet necklace for my wedding._

_P.S.2, Thank you so much for rejecting Will's wedding proposal all those years ago – I cannot imagine how awful it would be to have him as my stepfather!_

**FIN**

oOo

**A/N: another L/E story has come to an end, I hope you have enjoyed it all along. Please be so kind and leave a final review! :)**

**For those who have grown to like L/E and/or my writing in general, I have good news: I am going to come out with a new fanfic in September, even longer than this one (more than twice the length of this one in pages, novel-length, in fact). Once again, it will be very different from my earlier Temeraire works – it is the darkest Temeraire fanfic I have ever written, a story of love turned to hate, a story of vengeance and jealousy, and a story showing Laurence's fatherly side, setting in the England of 1817. **

**Be sure to keep a lookout for the story titled _'Like Mother, Like Daughter'_, coming soon!**

**A short preview from the upcoming story:**

o

After saying good-bye to Captain Riley, Temeraire and his small crew went aloft. Laurence felt his heart soar for a short while, the white cliffs of Dover swishing past under them, fields of fresh, spring-green in the distance – nature could not produce this shade of green anywhere else on the globe but in his homeland.

"They seem to be patrolling," Temeraire said after a minute. "Must be horribly boring to do nothing but patrol, eat and occasionally mate… I bet not only Iskierka must be miffed about it but the rest of them too. And not only the dragons but their crews as well. Why, I cannot imagine Jane Roland sitting at her table all day and going on patrols once in a while… that is not her style."

"No, definitely not her style," Laurence replied as they approached the formation of six dragons flying neatly along the coastline.

"Excidium, hey, Excidium!" Temeraire called out when they were in earshot. "Look, we are back!"

"Oh, Temeraire…" the older dragon replied with not nearly as much enthusiasm as either Temeraire or Laurence had expected. The other five dragons around Excidium seemed either completely unfamiliar to Laurence or ones that he had seen a few times but whose names he did not manage to recall.

"Are you not happy to see us?" Temeraire enquired from Excidium.

"Oh, we have been expecting you," the older dragon replied somewhat tersely, and Laurence gently hushed Temeraire when his dragon muttered to him over his shoulder, "That was not even a reply to my question".

Temeraire sidled somewhat closer to Excidium, as close as the two dragons flying on Excidium's right would allow, and tried once more to start decent conversation by saying, "We are very happy to be back, Australia has been so very boring, but Laurence says that England is at peace now which means now England must be very boring too, having nothing else to do but patrolling… is that true?"

"Duty can never be boring," Excidium replied coolly, "but now that you mention it, our duty for the day is over, there comes our relief," he pointed at a flock of dragons approaching from the direction of the covert. "We are going back, are we not, Emily?"

"Yes, my dear, definitely," came the reply from the captain's place on Excidium's neck, making both Laurence and Temeraire stare at the source of the voice with eyes wide like saucers.

There was no mistake: the woman wearing the captain's coat with the three stripes reserved for formation leaders was not Jane, but Emily Roland. She glanced in their direction, but only for a second, then looked away, however that one second had been enough for Laurence to feel a strange, unpleasant sensation in the pit of his stomach. The eyes of Emily Roland had been those of a hawk searching for its prey, and Laurence could not help but think that _he_ was that prey.


End file.
